Two For the Price of One
by Pilgrim
Summary: Ranma’s engagement to Nabiki would be tough enough without her tomboy sister Akane. Unfortunately the two girls are literally inseparable they're conjoined twins!
1. Chapter 1

Ranma's engagement to Nabiki would be tough enough without her tomboy twin Akane.  Unfortunately the two girls are literally inseparable…they're conjoined twins!

**Two for the price of one**

A work of-fan fiction by Dan Stickney.

Ranma ½ is the property of Rumiko Takahashi.

******

It began, as it always does, with a simple postcard

_Tendo:  Bringing Ranma from China  -Saotome_

"At last…at long last..  He's finally coming.  The schools will be joined at last! I must inform the girls."

The tall, lanky Sensei sprang to his feet.  "Kasumi! Akane!  Nabiki!" he called, but there was no response, so he headed for the kitchen, sure he'd find his oldest daughter there working on dinner.  The younger two, the twins, were a different matter, because they could be anywhere.  But wherever they were, they were together - because they did _everything_ together.  Those girls were literally inseparable.

*******

_Huf-Huf-Huf_

It's said that the Japanese are the world's politest people – largely because they have to be, given how crowded their cities are.  

_Huf-Huf-Huf_

Take Tokyo for example.  No one who has never been there can truly believe just how many people jam the streets of that vast metropolis.  The seemingly teeming throngs of London or New York City pale in comparison. 

_Huf-Huf-Huf_

And that's why the Japanese simply _must_ be so polite: Rudeness would make such crowding simply unbearable.  Put plainly, manners are the social lubricant that prevents them from killing each other.  In fact, one might even go so far to say that Japan's Samurai past has proven to be the perfect underpinning for her urbanized present, because generations of touchy, hotheaded people running around with swords quickly separated the Japanese population into two groups:  the polite, and the dead.

_Huf-Huf-Huf  _

That said, however, there are less crowded parts of Tokyo: green and leafy suburbs like Nerima, the largest of Tokyo's 23 ancient wards.  There one can often find relative peace and quiet, at least between rush hours.  But even in Nerima most Japanese would never dream of being so ill-mannered as to openly stare at someone.  But stare they did, because even in oh-so-polite Japan the sight of the Tendo twins jogging was a stare-worthy event:  Two girls, each an exact mirror image of the other, moving as one.

_Huf-Huf-Huf  _

Akane Tendo ignored the people staring at them and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.  Beside her, Nabiki wiped the sweat off her brow.  "Man, sis.  How the heck did I let you talk me into this?" she puffed in rhythm with their perfectly synchronized footfalls

"You want to keep your figure, don't you?"  Akane shot back.  "If you didn't keep snacking all the time, we wouldn't need to run so much."  She paused for breath before continuing. "Anyway, stop complaining.  I agreed we'd cut this short so we could do your yoga tonight, didn't I?" She grimaced as Nabiki wiped her brow again.  "And stop doing that, you're messing up our rhythm.  You should wear a headband like I do."

Nabiki grimaced.  "I'm not complaining about the running, Sis,"   Their breath huffed in unison, perfectly synchronized just like their pace.  "I'm complaining about the _timing_.  I wouldn't need a bloody headband if we'd waited longer after the rain.  This humidity is killing me." 

"Oh, poor baby."  Akane jeered back, smirking as she glanced at her twin's profile out of the corner of her eye.  "What's the matter?  Can't take the heat?  Ready to admit that I'm the only real martial artist in the family?"   

Nabiki matched Akane's smirk even as she took the hint and picked up the pace a little.  Sure, she knew she was being manipulated, but she really didn't care.  Akane knew that her teasing always prodded the best performance out of her twin, and knew that Nabiki was counting on it.   And Nabiki knew that Akane knew.  Still, it wouldn't work if Nabiki didn't play the game too.  "Heh.  Bring it on, Sis." _ I'll be right beside you, as always._  

********

"Kasumi?  Have you seen Akane and Nabiki?"

The oldest Tendo girl pursed her lips judiciously.  "Out running, I think.  Do you need to talk to them, Father?"

"Yes, I'd like to see all three of you in the tearoom as soon as they get back."

*********

Fortunately, both the gate and the front door were open when the twins got home, so Nabiki and Akane didn't even have to stop running until they reached the room they shared at the top of the stairs.  

"Father wants a family meeting you two!"  Kasumi called after them as they bolted up the stairs two at a time.  Akane didn't even take the time to close the door before they started yanking off their running clothes.

"Hey, somebody might see us."  Nabiki objected as they changed into their favorite yellow Gi.

"Like who?  Dad?   Kasumi?"  Akane scoffed as they headed back towards the stairs.  "Come on.   Let's go to the Dojo.  I want to at least get in at least part of a workout."

Nabiki held her tongue as she helped Akane place a fresh cinderblock on top of two others. Akane scowled, concentrated, then shouted a loud kiai as she smashed her fist through it.

"There you go again Akane.  No wonder all the boys think we're weird."

Akae huffed and ran her hand through her long hair.  "So what.  They'd think we're weird anyway.  And not everybody thinks the world revolves around boys, Nabiki..."

Whatever she might have chosen to say next was interrupted by their older sister sliding open the shoji.  "There you are.  Didn't you hear me?  I said father wants to see us all in the tearoom.  He said it's important."  Her eyes crinkled ominously as she took in the shattered pieces of block scattered about.  

"Sorry sis."  Akane muttered apologetically.  "Don't worry about the mess; we'll clean it up later."

Nabiki puffed her bangs out of her face in seeming annoyance.  "Ooh, ain't we Miss obsequious all of a sudden."  The dojo was silent for a long, moment before the twins exchanged sidelong glances and started giggling.

"You two…"  Kasumi scolded warningly, though her eyes were laughing.

"We'll clean it up later, Sis."  Akane assured her older sister breezily as she and Nabiki brushed past her on their way to the door.  Kasumi shook her head and turned to follow.

"Jeeze, Nabiki, you really shouldn't tease Kasumi like that…"  Akane was muttering as they headed for the house.

"Why not? Otherwise, I'd be stuck picking on you.  And that's just way too easy."  

Akane shrieked as Nabiki pinched her butt.  "Hey, no fair!"  

Kasumi just shook her head behind them.  _Twins_.

*******

"WHAT?"  Akane shrieked at her father.

"I said, he's the son of an old friend, and a lifelong student of the anything goes style.  If one of you were to marry him, the future of the school would be secure."

"One of us?"  Nabiki and Akane exchanged another one of their sidelong glances.  "But that's not…"

"How old is this boy, Daddy?  Younger men bore me."  Kasumi overrode them.

"Sixteen.  Same age as these two."

"Don't you think we deserve a say in whom we're going to marry?" Akane shouted, loud enough to make Nabiki wince.

"Akane…"  Soun placated.  "No one says _you_ have to marry him.  It could just as easily be Nabiki or Kasumi as you."

"Daddy…"  Nabiki began hesitantly, cutting off her twin before she could explode again.  Unlike her more hotheaded sister, she was kind of intrigued by this potential romantic prospect.  Unfortunately, her father seemed to have overlooked some very important details.  "I don't think you've thought this all the way through…" She was cut off by a loud knocking from the Genkan.

"Someone is at the door."  Kasumi announced unnecessarily.

"Saotome, my old friend, it's good to see you" her father called prematurely as he leaped to his feet 

"Ooooh."  Nabiki squealed.  "It must be Ranma!  Let's go see!"

"No."  Akane muttered, heaving a sigh.  _Boys…how depressing_.  

"But…" Nabiki objected

"I don't want to go.  Let them come to us, if they have to."

Nabiki could only kneel there helplessly, unable to follow as her father headed down the hallway. Kasumi stopped in the doorway, looking uncertainly between her kneeling sisters and her father's retreating back, before she chose to go after him.  However, Nabiki's disappointment was brief as her father and sister soon reappeared, pursued by a large wild animal! Nabiki and Akane leaped to their feet, prepared to battle in defense of their family.  Soun spun and took up a defensive posture, his arms flung wide to keep his daughters behind him

"YO!  Cut it out old man, you're scaring them spitless!"  Shouted a strange voice from somewhere behind the Panda's shoulder.  The panda stopped short, then gently set a petite figure in baggy Chinese clothes on the floor in front of them.  There was a stunned silence as they stared at this strange person blinking back at them.

"So, Daddy, are these your friends?"  Kasumi asked coolly after a long moment.  Her father shook his head violently.

"OK, so this Panda just happened to visit.  Happens all the time."  Nabiki growled, a little hysterically.

"Who are you?"  Akane asked, ever the blunt one, asked the stranger directly.

The pigtailed stranger averted her gaze.  "I'm Ranma Saotome.  Sorry 'bout this."

"Ranma, at long last!  Mr. Tendo shouted, gathering the youngster in his arms, only to stop short as the person he was hugging proved to be much more…resilient than he expected.  He held the stranger out at arms length.  

Nabiki snaked her arm around her father and poked at the stranger's chest.  "Daddy…'He' is a girl."

Soun Tendo's eyes rolled up as he collapsed to the floor in a dead faint

"Jeez, Dad, you're pathetic."  Akane muttered, embarrassed.

The pigtailed stranger ignored him, massaging her right breast as she turned to Nabiki instead. "Hey, what's the big idea of poking me _there?_ That hurts…you…know…"  Ranma's voice trailed off as she got her first really good look at the person she was addressing…A girl about her own age, nicely built, wearing a yellow gi, with dark hair, and…two… heads…

The three Tendo sisters, one normal and two conjoined, looked on in surprise as their unexpected guest joined Mr. Tendo in unconsciousness on the floor.

"Wuss."  Akane huffed contentiously.  

******

The first thing Ranma noticed as she returned to consciousness was the voices.

"Poor father.  He must be so disappointed."  That voice sounded sympathetic, cool, and musical

"He's disappointed?  Some fiancé this is!"  That one, on the other hand, sounded disappointed enough to make Ranma wince.  _Though you'd think I'd have gotten used to shock and pity by now._

"Hush, you two.  He…she… is our guest."  The third voice, so much like the second, sounded strangely…relieved?

Ranma opened her eyes and sat up, rubbing her head.  "Man, I just had the strangest dream."

"Really?  What sort of dream?" The tallest girl, the one with the musical voice, asked her kindly.

Ranma smiled sheepishly.  "I could have sworn I saw a girl with two…" she turned and faced the other girl kneeling next to the futon, and her eyes bugged out.  This time, though, she managed not to faint.   It hadn't been a dream after all.  There really was a two-headed girl.  The left-hand head smiled sheepishly while the head on the right glared back at her.

"We are not a two-headed girl, you jerk.  We're conjoined twins."  The right-hand head muttered huffily.  Despite her current anger, Ranma noticed that she'd been the third voice, the relieved-sounding one.

"Now, now, Sis.  There's no need to get angry." The second head responded in, appropriately enough, the second voice.  She turned to address Ranma.  "Hi.  I'm Nabiki, and this is Akane."  She nodded at the elder sister kneeling at her father's side across from them.  "That's Kasumi."

"Uh…hi."  Ranma responded at last, staring openly. "I'm, uh…Ranma."

"Ranma, you shouldn't stare at people.  It's not polite" the oldest girl, Kasumi, chided gently.

"It's OK, Kasumi."  The left-hand head, Nabiki, reassured her.  "After all, it's a safe bet she's never seen anyone like us before."  She turned back to Ranma, unmistakable pride in her voice.  "We're the only dicephalic twins in all of Japanese history."

The pigtailed girl looked puzzled.  "Dice what?"  

The right-hand head –Akane-- rolled her eyes.  "Dicephalus means two heads."

Ranma tried to puzzle that out.  "But you just said that you didn't have two heads, that you, you was whatchamacallit – 'joined twins…"

Akane pursed her lips in frustration.  _Jeez, this girl is dim_.  But then again, she also wasn't screaming, or flinching, or fleeing, or otherwise freaking out the way most people did on meeting them. So maybe she had potential.   She looked thoughtful for a moment, before her eyes lit up.  "Hey, do you want to be friends?"

Caught by surprise by the major mood shift, it was all Ranma could do to mutter, "Um, uh, yeah.  Why not?"

"Look, you do martial arts, right?  Want to see the dojo?  We'll explain as we go.  We could even have a little match.  What do you say?"  Beside her, Nabiki nodded without saying anything.  The two of them got to their feet, and reached down to pull Ranma up with them.

Ranma couldn't help noticing that their grips were pretty strong--for girls.  "Uh, OK, I guess…"

Kasumi just shook her head as Akane and Nabiki headed for the Dojo with their pigtailed visitor in tow. Trust those two to figure out a way to pry a sparring match out of this debacle.  Beside her, the Panda made a similar gesture, for similar reasons.

***********

Man, I thought I'd be ready for _anything_ after Jusenkyo, but nothing, not even turning into a girl when I got wet, had prepared me for meetin' a two-headed girl--who somehow insisted that she really wasn't a two-headed girl--let alone joinin' her (them?) in a very traditional looking dojo for a sparing match.  I got a good long look as I followed 'em across the walkway, and from what I could see from behind they looked kinda, well, normal…IF you could ignore the second head, that is.  I mean, they had two arms, and two legs, and two, er…well, you know.  The left head - Nabiki, she'd said her name was - had short hair, and Akane's was long, but otherwise, they were perfect mirror images of each other.  They had a really scary way of talkin' too; they kept finishin' each other's sentences.

"So." Nabiki began.  "We're really just like any other identical twins…"

Akane took over in mid-sentence "… in that we started from a single egg."

Nabiki:  "Only our egg didn't divide all the way…"

Akane:  "…so we ended up like this."

Nabiki:  "They call us dicephalic twins because we _look_ like one girl with two heads, but…"

"but we're really two half-girls fused together."  Akane finished for her as they turned back to me.  "So, what do you think?"

"Think?" I echoed, startled.

"About the dojo, silly."  Nabiki responded.

_Dojo?  What dojo?_  _Oh_.  I tore my eyes off of them and took a quick look around.  "Uh, it's nice."  I stammered.  "It kinda needs to be cleaned up a little, though."

Nabiki glared sidelong – the only way she could – at her sister.  "Told you."  

"Yeah, yeah." Akane muttered.  She focused on me.  "So, you do kempo, right?"

"Um, yeah…"

"You want to have a little match?  I promise we won't hurt you."

"Um, OK."  Man, was I in trouble now.  It wasn't getting hurt that I was worried about.  I mean, freaky two-headed thing or not, they were only girls, right?  But I couldn't just clobber 'em or humiliate 'em either.  I mean, they'd actually been nice to me, so far.  So what to do?  Unfortunately, I didn't have time to think about it before they came at me.

Man, what a bizarre experience that was.  I mean, most of reading someone's moves is lookin' at their head, you know?  Even folks who don't telegraph with their arms and legs have a hard time not tensing their necks before they move, and it gives 'em away every time.  But I never, ever had to keep an eye on two heads before, and I'm kinda ashamed to say that they nearly tagged me with their first strike, even as slow as they was.  Strange thing though: they may have been slow, but they were graceful. 

So anyway, I just kept dodging and dodging, trying to figure out what to do, and I couldn't help but notice that the two of them were reacting very differently.  The left one – Nabiki- seemed almost amused by my antics, while the right one – Akane – just kept lookin' madder and madder.  So maybe the really were two different people after all.  Finally, Akane muttered "This time for real" and they threw a powerful right haymaker that just smashed clean through the wall paneling, giving me the opportunity to vault over them, touching them on the backs of their heads as I flew by.  They tried to yank the fist out of the hole and turn to follow, but they overbalanced and sat down on their butt, hard, instead.

"Ow, sis."  Nabiki complained after a long moment.  "That hurt, you know.  How many times have I got to tell you not to overextend yourself like that?"

"Sorry."  Akane muttered.  "I guess I got carried away again."  She brushed back her hair, then peered at the back of her fingers.

"Did you hurt your hand?"  Nabiki asked, peering over at it too.

"Naw, not really - just scraped my knuckles.  How about you?"

"I'm fine.  Just bruised my butt."  Nabiki replied and all I could think was: _her_ butt?  Didn't she mean _their_ butt?  Akane interrupted my confusion by looking up at me and smiling

"Heh, you're pretty good."  She said as the two of them clambered to their feet.  "Can you teach us some of those moves?  I'm really glad you're not a boy." She said, her face twisting in disgust.  
  
_Uh-oh_ I thought, my face falling.  

"What my sister means," Nabiki said, with yet another of those sidelong glances, "Is that neither of us is ready to get married yet…"  

"Or ever."  Akane interrupted.

Nabiki continued like she hadn't heard.  "And since you're a girl we won't have to be engaged to you.  Hopefully, we can all still be friends though."

"Thanks…" I muttered, looking at the floor.  "I…I've never really had many friends before."

"Cool.  We're gonna go get cleaned up.  See ya!"  And with a wave and two smiles the girl who was somehow really two girls turned and walked off, leaving me behind them in that big and empty room.

_What to do...What to do?_

******

I found myself kneeling on the engawa, looking at the Koi pond, wonderin' if my life could possibly get any weirder, and trying to figure out just what the heck to do next.  Unfortunately, I hadn't come to any conclusions before the older girl, Kasumi her name was, corralled me and sent me off to the bath.  I tried to resist, really I did, but there was something about her the just made "no" seem like an impossible answer.

_What to do...What to do?_

So I did as I was bid, and headed for the bathroom, scrubbed up, and climbed into the tub, shivering a little as the tingling of the change overtook me.  At least it was a very nice furo, big enough for the whole family.  I guess that should have tipped me off that somebody might try to join me, but frankly I was too stuck in my mental rut to make the connection.  

_Guess I just oughta go out as I am.  No point in tryin' to keep this a secret._

Mind made up, I stood up to leave. Unfortunately, that's when the shoji suddenly _zhooped_ aside, and Akane and Nabiki stepped in, wearing nothin' but the bath towels they had draped over their arms, and froze.

Naked, they looked less like a two-headed girl and more like the 'joined twins' they said they was.  I mean, each had her own breastbone, and I could clearly see three honest-to-goodness collarbones.  But it was what was below them collarbones that that really caught my eye, because they actually had _three_ boobs: the center one was just so much smaller than the outer two that I hadn't seen it under their clothes.  Below that it got more normal-lookin': their combined torsos tapered in to a normal-looking waist, and they only had one navel.  Everything below that _looked_ normal enough, not that I'm any judge.  I mean, so far as I could tell (and I'd learned a _lot_ in the weeks since I'd been cursed) girls' privates pretty much all look the same: all you can see is hair, unless you get a lot closer than I wanted to.   They stood there and stared at me for what seemed like forever in stunned shock,  Nabiki in particular taking a good look at _my_ privates, before they turned and stepped quickly back through the doorway.  As the screen _zhooped_ shut I got a clear view of how their two spinal columns joined at the small of their back.

_Oh man, now I'm really in for it. _ I thought as the screaming started.

******** 

Startled, Kasumi turned from her soup and raced out of the kitchen as her sisters ran screaming down the hallway, clad only in their gi-top and looking like they'd just seen a ghost.  "What's wrong?"

"There's a pervert in the bathroom."  Akane shouted, casting around frantically for something to use as a weapon.  She pointed at the large stone lantern next to the Koi pond.  "There!  We'll weigh him down and drown him in the tub!"  

Nabiki shook her head.  "Why don't we just clobber him with our bare hands?"

Kasumi suddenly dropped the serving spoon she'd been holding and clutched at her face in horror.  "Oh, No!  Ranma-chan was in the bathroom.  You have to save her!"

"Because I'm scared!"  Akane shot back at Nabiki, ignoring Kasumi for the time being.  However, before she could say anything else the soft "Ah-hem" of someone quietly clearing his throat froze all of them.  They turned slowly to see a strange pigtailed boy wearing Ranma-chans's Chinese clothes looking at them sheepishly from the hallway, his hair still wet and disheveled from the bath.   

Kasumi was the first to regain her voice.  "Who are you?"  

"Ah, well, I'm Ranma Saotome."  The mysterious boy replied.  "Sorry 'bout this." 

********

I guess I should stop wondering if my life could possibly get any weirder.  I'd a' thought that our story alone would've been enough to make old man Tendo toss me and Pops out on our ears.  Instead, he started patting me on the shoulder, grinning like a maniac.

"So let me get this straight:  You turn into a girl when you get splashed with cold water, but hot water turns you back into a boy?"

I nodded uncertainly.  Just what was he leading up to?

"So there's really no problem then, is there?  These are my three daughters:  Kasumi is eighteen, and Nabiki and Akane are sixteen…" he smiled, taking in the girls with a sweep of his hand.  "Pick one, and she'll be your fiancée."

'WHAT?"  Akane shrieked.  "You honestly expect one of us to marry that…that…freak?"

Man, you can't believe how much it hurt to hear that …especially since I'd been thinking along the same lines myself for two weeks now.  "_I'm_ a freak?  Have you looked in a mirror lately?"

Jeez, I regretted that before I'd even finished saying it.  The looks on their faces, Nabiki's especially…I swear, if I'd have realized how much that would hurt, I would've torn out my tongue instead.  I dropped my gaze to the floor.  "Fine.  I guess I am a freak.  Go ahead and laugh at me, I don't care anymore."  I tried to swallow the lump in my throat.  "I thought you wanted to be friends."   I stood up.  "Come on, Pop."

Unfortunately, the old man wasn't followin' my script. "Where do you think you're going, boy?"

"Back to China, to find a cure."  _Or die trying.  After all, if these refugees from a carnival sideshow don't want me, what hope have I got?_

Suddenly, Kasumi spoke up.  "I think Nabiki should marry Ranma, Father.  That is, if she wants to."  She continued into their stunned faces.  "They're both the same age, and they both like martial arts.  Isn't the whole idea supposed to be a joining of the two schools?"  I slumped back down on my knees in surprise.  Surprisingly, Nabiki didn't object.  Akane on the other hand …

"WHAT?"  She shrieked again.  "What about me?"

"Akane." Her father began reasonably.  "You already said you didn't want to marry Ranma." 

"Dammit Dad, it's not like Nabiki can do anything without me!  Especially this!"

"But Akane."  Kasumi put in reasonably. "You don't much like boys, do you?"

"But that's just because they're all perverts!"

"Well, then you're in luck aren't you?  Ranma's half girl.  He's perfect for you two."

I almost objected at that point, but Pops whacked me on the knee to warn me to keep quiet.

"But he's a pervert!" Akane objected

"What do you mean Akane?"  Nabiki spoke for the first time.  "We walked in him, remember?"

Akane gestured in frustration.  "But he saw us naked!"

Nabiki shook her head.  "Akane, we saw him naked too."

"But it's different when a girl sees a boy naked."  Akane objected irrationally.

Man, what did I just say 'bout weirder?  If you don't think anything could be stranger than the sight of a two headed girl, try watching a two-headed girl arguing with herself sometime.  "So what if I saw you naked?" I jerked my thumb at my right breast, reminding them of my current female state. "I've seen myself naked plenty of times, and you ain't got nothing I ain't got."   I probably should've shut up then, but I didn't.  "Except for that third boob, of course…"

WHAMMO!

*******

Kasumi and her father stared in mute astonishment as Nabiki and Akane dusted their hands together with a joint "hmmph" and flounced off towards their room, leaving their erstwhile fiancé unconscious under the overturned table.  Genma, on the other hand, merely took a sip of his tea.  "Now that one he had coming to him."

********

"Ah, you're awake."

Man, my head hurt.  And the lights were like ice picks stabbing into my eyes.  I found myself lying face down on some tatami mats, a cold compress on the top of my head.  I looked over and gradually focused on Kasumi, kneeling beside me with another compress at the ready.

"I hope you'll forgive my sisters.  They're…a bit touchy about some things."

_You're tellin' me?_  I almost asked, before I caught myself and nodded instead.   

Kasumi smiled and stood up.  "Akane, Nabiki…Ranma's awake."

I sat up as the joined girls entered with mixed expressions. Nabiki looking more apologetic, Akane more hostile.

"Now I want all three of you to apologize to each other.  We all have to get along until we get this straightened out."

"Yes, Oneechan."  The two sisters muttered in unison.  

I was about to object – something along the lines of _Hey, they hit me!_ – but one look at Kasumi's face made me think better of it.  I turned back to the twins.  "I'm sorry."

"We're really sorry, Ranma."  Nabiki began.  "Aren't we Akane?"  

Akane didn't respond at once.  Suddenly, the hand on Nabiki's side of their body snaked over and prodded the other side in the ribs.

"Yeah, whatever."  Akane muttered.

"Akane?"  Kasumi asked, a hint of steel in her voice.

"Oh all right.  I'm sorry too, OK?  There, satisfied?"

"Good.  I'm going to leave the three of you alone so you can get to know each other better."  She stood up and turned to go.  "Now be nice.  I should think that all three of you would be grateful for whatever friends you could get."  

We sat there for a long moment, nobody saying anything.  Finally I couldn't stand the silence any longer.  "Don't get me wrong or nothing, 'cause I ain't ready to marry anybody yet, but…Is the idea of bein' engaged to me really so bad?"  _Shoot, I'd a thought a couple of freaks like them woulda been grateful. _

 "Daddy really hasn't thought this whole fiancé thing through properly."  Nabiki muttered dejectedly.  

"He's still living in denial." Akane mumbled.  "He wants to believe we can actually get married."

I looked at the two of them.  I mean, the thought of marrying either one of them seemed positively creepy, but there had to be at least one guy in the whole world who'd be willing to try it.  "Why not?"

"Think about it."  Akane began.  "We share one womb."

"Not to mention the cunt it's connected to." interjected Nabiki sweetly.  Akane turned to glare at her, but Nabiki seemed suddenly interested in something on the far wall.  Maybe these two really were individuals after all.

"What's that got to do with it?"  I responded, confused.  "I mean, you share everything else, don't you?   Why would sharing your, um…" I gestured at Nabiki…"…plumbing… mean that you can't get married?"

They sighed and spoke together.  "Think it through… " 

"As two people, we can't marry the same person." Akane continued

"That would be bigamy…" Nabiki put in 

"And with only one uh, uh…" Akane seemed stuck

"Pussy…" interjected Nabiki, earning another glare, "we can't marry two people…"

"…that would be adultery," finished Akane.  "In fact, under Japanese law, if we have any sex at all..."

"Even masturbation…" threw in Nabiki

"…it would be considered both sodomy _and_ incest." Akane concluded. "Plus there's the whole issue of maternity…"

"Right." Nabiki picked up smoothly.  "Any child we bear, we bear together."

"So who gets to be the official mother?" Akane added. "I'm not going through pregnancy and labor just to have Nabiki declared the sole mother just because she's married to the father."

"It's bad enough sharing clothes."   Nabiki finished, and the two sisters shared a look.

By this point I felt like a spectator at a tennis match.  "You know, I ain't sure which is worse."  I told them. "The way you complete each other's sentences, or the way you speak in unison." 

"Is this any better?" they responded in perfect harmony, Akane supplying the low tones, and Nabiki the high ones.

"How do you do that?"  I asked, astounded.

"We only have one diaphragm."  they continued together, swapping parts.

"Either we speak in unison…"  Akane began 

"…or we take turns."  Nabiki continued

"…because it's easier than saying different things at the same time."  They concluded together.

"But how do you know what the other's gonna say?"  I couldn't help asking. 

"We just know."  They responded in unison.  I can't even begin to describe what their shrug looked like.

"Ranma…"  Nabiki said, hesitantly.  "We share the same skin, OK?  I mean, you can't spend your whole life together without getting to know each other pretty well, you know?"

"Yeah."  Akane threw in "We're just like any other identical twins in that regard, only more so." 

"So… what's it like?"

The two of them shared a look.  "What do you want to know?" Nabiki responded

"Do you share everything below the neck?"

Nabiki shook her head.  "No, not at all.  We really are two half-girls fused together.  I have all control and feeling on my side, and Akane on hers.  There's about a ten-centimeter wide strip down the middle that we both share, but that's about it."

"Yeah, thank god for that."  Akane threw in.  At my confused look she continued.  "It would be really horrible having to go to the bathroom, and not be able to do anything about it."    

Nabiki nodded.  "Anyway, so that's how we live.  Akane has her side and I have my side, and we both share the stuff in the middle.  For instance, we've got three lungs: mine, hers, and one in the middle that we both share…."

"Yeah, it really sucks when we get bronchitis."

"…we also have three kidneys the same way.  Hers, mine, and ours.  We each have our own stomachs…"

"Yeah, and if you don't stop stuffing yours, we're going to get fat."  Akane groused.

"…but only one set of intestines." Nabiki finished

Suddenly, something occurred to me.  "Wait a minute…If you each control your own side, then how the heck do you walk?"  _Let alone practice Kenpo?_

Nabiki looked back at me seriously.  "How do YOU walk, Ranma?"

"Well, I put one foot in front of the other…"

"Yeah, but how do you know how to do that?  How do you know which muscles to use when?" Akane asked.

Hmmm, I'd never thought about that.  "I dunno…I just do, I guess."

"Well, we _just do_ too.   We don't know how we walk, we just do.  It's the same way with two-handed tasks, like tying our shoes, and martial arts.  We don't know _how_ we do it… we just do."

*******

Bedtime at the Tendo Dojo that night came rather early for most of the residents, as the Tendos and their house guests sought the refuge of sleep to free them from the burden of their various hopes and fears.

Soun Tendo sighed contentedly as he stretched out on his futon.  Things were definitely looking up.  He was sure that, given a chance, Nabiki would win over Ranma, and the schools would be joined.  _Sure, Akane isn't too happy about it at the moment,_ He thought fuzzily, _but she'll get used to it.  After all, it isn't like she's the one that has to marry the boy._

For Genma, the issue wasn't quite so straightforward.  _My son, marry that…freak?  If his mother ever found out…_  He took a moment to steady his breathing_  Now, now, no reason to get upset about it – there's no way the boy will ever consent to anything that repulsive.  I'm sure it won't take long for Tendo to see reason and switch the engagement to Kasumi.  And if not, there's always that Kuonji girl…_

Kasumi was smiling as she settled under her covers.  This had been the best day she'd had in a long time.  Maybe Kami-sama had finally decided to answer her prayers.   Ranma really could be both a boy for Nabiki and a girl for Akane, if indeed her little sister did swing that way.  (Kasumi didn't actually think that, but lately she'd begun to wonder...)  Sure Ranma was a bit rough around the edges, and they'd certainly gotten off to a bad start, but he was bound by family honor to at least try to make a go of it.  Maybe her little sisters weren't doomed to spinsterhood after all.

One could safely say that the other two Tendo girls were less thrilled about the recent course of events.  They got ready for bed in silence, life-long experience obviating any need to speech.  It wasn't until after they'd spent several minutes staring at the ceiling that Nabiki finally broke the silence.

"So, sis, what do you really think of Ranma?"

"Him?  OK, I guess.  He's really good at the art.  Too bad he's such a crude, clueless, perverted jerk.  Why?"

"Well, I was just thinking…"

Akane was surprised by the wistful tone of her sister's voice.  "You aren't actually thinking about accepting this engagement, are you?

Nabiki was silent for a long moment.

"Well, are you?"

"He saw us naked and he didn't run away screaming ...and there's that whole family honor thing….and he seems fascinated that we can do martial arts…and I think he might actually like us a little…and…I…"

"Spit it out, Sis."

"I'm afraid that he might be our only chance…I don't want us to be stuck alone…"

"Nabiki, we'll never be alone.  We'll always have each other, forever."

"I know, but… this is different."

Akane's hand snaked up and gently traced the outline of the central nipple, the one they both shared.  "How is it different?" 

Nabiki reached over, and caught Akane's hand with hers.  "Please, sis, I'm not in the mood."

"No?  give it a minute, and you will be."  Nabiki grimaced.  Akane was right, shared hormones, and the emotions they triggered, were one aspect of their shared bloodstream.  If one of them got horny, then the other one would too.  Usually, this wasn't a problem.  Usually.   _Thank God we can't get horny separately.  If we could, you couldn't make love to one of us without sexually assaulting the other._

"Please, sis."  Nabiki pleaded.

"Oh all right."  Akane relented, returning her hand to her side.

Nabiki smiled in relief.  "Now you go to sleep.  It's my turn to stay up tonight."

"Oh, all right."  Akane yawned.  "G'night, sis."

Nabiki turned her head and gently kissed her sister's cheek.  "Good night."

As for Ranma, he'd looked for a quiet place to think, eventually finding refuge on the roof beneath the open sky he'd slept under for most of his young life.  He grimaced, the glare from the city lights surrounding him washed out most of the stars.  _Say what you want about Jusenkyo, the night skies over Qinghai were truly spectacular._  Unfortunately, he found his attention kept drifting from the stars to images of Nabiki's deep brown eyes.  Or were they Akane's?  The two of them looked so alike…

_ Oh man, what am I gonna do.  It's bad enough I've become a freak myself, now I've got to be engaged to a couple of other freaks too?_  He tried to picture himself actually married to them, and shuddered. It was really kinda too bad, when you thought about it. Each of them alone could have been kinda cute…taken together, though…Ranma decided to give up on his star-gazing.  If he couldn't get his mind off of this, he figured he was better off asleep.  He dropped back down into the yard and crept through the side door, moving as quietly as possible to avoid waking anyone.  He'd made it to the top of the stairs and was just about to open the guest room shoji when a soft voice called to him from the twin's bedroom.

*******

Given what I've been through in my life, I wouldn't have thought that a girl's voice would be enough to make me freeze in horror.  Shows what little you know.

"Ranma… is that you? Can you come in for a minute?  I want to talk to you."

It sounded like Nabiki.   "But…"

"Oh, don't be such a worrywart.  Akane's asleep."

I hesitantly pushed open the door with the two facing duck-shaped nameplates.  Nabiki put down the manga she'd been reading.  Akane's eyes were closed, her face half shadowed by the small reading light her sister was using.  "Heh…She really is asleep."

Nabiki smiled.  "We try to stagger our bedtimes.  It's the only way we have of getting any time alone."

I thought about that for a moment.  "You're never really alone, though, are you?"

Nabiki shook her head.  "No.  How can I be, when I can literally feel her pulse in my veins?  Do you realize that our heartbeats synchronize?  Not now, I mean, because she's asleep and I'm awake, but when we're both doing the same thing, they beat as one.  And if anything happened to my heart, Akane's could do the job for both of us.  And vice-versa, of course."

"Shoot, I guess I'm kinda your opposite then."  I muttered.  "I mean, I've been alone my whole life.  It's been just me and Pops for as long as I can remember.  We've been on the road training for nearly my whole life."

"Wow, that must have been really tough on you."

"Dunno, I guess I'm used to it."  I thought for a long moment.  "Nabiki?"

"Hmmmm?"

"Does Akane really hate boys?"

"No, not really, it's just that we've always had a lot of trouble with them.  They keep saying the most horrible, perverted things about us, and sometimes even to us…"  She looked away.  "Akane and I found out a long time ago that the only boys who were actually attracted to us were too sick to be trusted."

_'Cause you're freaks, right._  Suddenly, I felt really, really bad about what I'd said at the table earlier. 

Nabiki looked back at me, a strained smile on her face.  "At least we know you're not a sicko, don't we?  If you were, you wouldn't find the idea of being engaged to me so repulsive."

_You got that right._ Man, I hoped she wasn't gonna cry.  I hate it when girls cry. "It ain't just you…" I began

Nabiki gave another sidelong glance at her twin.  "It never is."   She looked back at me.  "Ranma, do me a favor.  Talk to Akane, OK?   I think you'll like her if you get to know her.  I mean, we're pretty much stuck together until this engagement thing gets resolved anyway."

I should've said no.  Actually, I should've said 'Hell no!'  But she just looked so desperate, you know?  I just couldn't do it.  So I tried to find another way out instead.  "How am I gonna do that?"  
  
Nabiki actually smiled a little, probably because I didn't object.  "She usually wakes up before I do, so you can either talk to her in the morning, or you can wait until tomorrow night, when it's her turn to stay up late."

I really, really didn't wanna do this.  But I wasn't gonna hurt her feelings if I didn't have to, either.  Finally I said.  "I'll think about it."

Nabiki looked relieved.  "Thanks.  Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

_Oh man.  What am I gonna do?_

********

Dare I continue this?

******* OMAKE *******

....Brock looked white.  "Oh, no! Pikachu is down!  He was our last Pokémon!  What are we going to do?

Ash winced.  He wished that it hadn't come to this, but nothing was going to stand the way of his dream of becoming the greatest Pokémon trainer of all time.  He took a deep breath, then reached into his backpack and carefully withdrew the gleaming Colt 1911.  

_"_John Moses Browning_, I choose you!"_

_-- "A Fist-full of Pok__mon", _chapter 2__


	2. Chapter 2

Ranma's engagement to Nabiki would be tough enough without her tomboy sister Akane.  Unfortunately the two girls are literally inseparable…they're conjoined twins!

**Two for the price of one**

A work of fan-fiction by Dan Stickney.

Ranma ½ is the property of Rumiko Takahashi.

Chapter 2:  

******

Ranma rubbed at his sore cheekbone as he walked along the top of the canal-edge fence, doing his damnedest to ignore Akane and Nabiki as they stalked along beside him, noses in the air.  Unfortunately, he wasn't doing a very good job of it:  The stout chain link safety fence just wasn't challenging enough to hold his attention, and a two-headed girl tends to by eye-catching even if you didn't happen to be engaged to her left half.

OK, so maybe Nabiki and Akane really weren't a two headed girl; that didn't make them any less eye-catching...especially since Ranma's experiences yesterday had given him a pretty good idea of what their conjoined body really looked like underneath their relatively normal-looking school uniform.  He _still_ couldn't figure out why their middle breast didn't show through their clothes, and it was driving him to distraction.  So Ranma couldn't help but snatch brief, covert (he hoped) glances at them as they made their way to school, all the while telling himself that he was just trying to gauge their moods.

Unfortunately for him, their moods still seemed to be "pissed" and "more pissed".

_Dammit__, it's not fair!  Nabiki **asked **me to talk to Akane in the morning._  

OK, so maybe he shouldn't have snuck into their room to see if Akane was awake yet, but did she really have to scream? And no, maybe it wasn't the brightest idea to clamp his hand over her mouth, but she'd scared him, and how the heck was he supposed to know that would merely result in the scream being forced out of Nabiki's mouth instead?  Or that Nabiki, startled at being awakened in such a rude and shocking manner, would come up swinging?  

Breakfast had been rather tense, afterwards.  He still hadn't decided which had been worse:  The twin's anger, Kasumi's firm but quiet disapproval, or Mr. Tendo's breezy "boys-will-be-boys" dismissal of the whole episode.  Pop had taken the panda way out, the coward.

So no, it hadn't been a good morning for Ranma.  Worst of all, he wasn't normally given to introspection like this and he had no real talent for it.  He supposed he should be thinking about his first day at a new school, or finding a cure for his curse, or finding a way out this freaky engagement, or about anything else except what he _was_ thinking about, which was:  _Just how the heck **do** you button a two-collared shirt, anyway?_

Akane caught Ranma looking at them _again _(the pervert) and glared up at him.  "We're not getting married you know.  So stay away from us at school," she growled, fiddling with the middle strap on their customized jumper.  

Unfortunately, her fiddling only served to remind Ranma just what lay below that third strap and he was briefly transfixed before he nodded hastily.  "No problem."  _Like I'd need an excuse?  _Akane's answering growl and Nabiki's wince told him that he'd screwed up again, but his wounded pride wouldn't let him back down.  He was silent for a moment before he continued, "...besides, I'm not engaged to _you_ anyway."

Akane bristled.  "Oh, no?  Do you honestly think that _I'm_ going to let _you_ marry Nabiki?"

"At least she's not a tomboy.  I can't stand macho chicks."  Ranma shot back.  Akane huffed at that.  At least she was yelling at him. Nabiki was still giving him the silent treatment.  He almost wished she'd yell at him too; anything would be better then the hurt, betrayed looks she kept giving him.

Akane trained her gaze resolutely forward.  "Yeah, right.  You're just another pervert, just like all the others.  Honestly, sneaking into our room uninvited like that…"

"But I didn't!"  Ranma protested, outraged.  

Akane was still spluttering, too angry to respond, when Nabiki's expression suddenly changed.  She clapped her hand over her mouth in shock.  "Oh, my…I …"

Ranma just looked down puzzled as the twin girls suddenly came to a ragged and disjointed halt.  The sudden shift in their body language from harmony to disharmony was startling.

"Sis?  What is it?"

"Akane, I…I just remembered that I…"  She looked up at the pigtailed martial artist, clearly flustered.  "Ranma, you idiot!  I didn't mean that?"

 "Mean WHAT?"  Akane exploded in frustration.

Nabiki looked down, scuffing her foot in embarrassment.  "Last night, after you fell asleep, I kind of had a little talk with Ranma…"

Akane didn't say anything, though a betrayed _you didn't_ was clearly written on her face.

"…and I asked him to talk to you alone sometime...sometime while I was asleep."  She smiled suddenly.  "I never even imagined that he'd be dumb enough to do _that._" 

Ranma hopped down off of the fence.  "Hey, who are you calling dumb?" he flushed, embarrassed.  "You're the one who said Akane was gonna wake up first.  I never dreamed you was gonna freak like that."

Nabiki snorted, a slow smile beginning to dawn.  "No, you didn't, did you?  I wish you could have seen the look on your face when I popped you one."  

Akane interrupted this particular by-play huffily.  "I can't believe you let a_ boy_ into _our room_ sis."  The two girls started back down the street, only this time their movements were herky-jerky, without their customary grace: their disagreement seemed to carry over into their very body language.  The three teenagers were so distracted that they didn't even notice the elderly lady ceremoniously sprinkling her walkway ahead of them.

 "Why not?  He was a gentleman about it."

 "But he could have…he might have…" Akane muttered uncomfortably.  Now that Nabiki had calmed down and was no longer pumping fight-or-flight hormones into their shared bloodstream she was having difficulty holding on to her own anger, but she was still clearly distressed at the thought of a boy in their room while she was asleep. 

Nabiki smiled breezily.  "Oh, come off it, Sis.  Nothing happened, right?  If it had, I would have screamed and you would have been the one to wake up and smack him."

Goaded, Ranma huffed "Oh yeah?  You think I wouldn't have seen it coming, slowpokes?" just as he turned and walked straight into the little old lady's next dipper-full of water.  

Nabiki burst out laughing as Ranma's body shrank and curved.  Even Akane couldn't help smiling at the drenched redhead's bewildered expression.

 "Like you saw that coming, Saotome?"  Nabiki asked him dryly.

Ranma tried to ignore their smirking.  "Oh man… I can't go to school like this!"

 "Come on, Ranma…" Akane began, giggling.

"…we know where you can get some hot water." Nabiki completed as the conjoined girls turned and led him up the street, moving in perfect synchrony once again.

*******

Genma Saotome kept his eyes firmly focused on the shoji board, but it didn't seem to be helping him much; Soun was still beating him like cheap rug.  He supposed he should be paying more attention to the game--especially since it had literally been years since his last opportunity to match wits with his old friend--but how could he concentrate on a stupid game when he had more important things to worry about, like convincing his ol' buddy Soun to shift the engagement from his freakish two-headed daughter to the normal one?   

Unfortunately, that was still a question without an answer, because the beefy martial artist still had no idea how to even broach such a delicate subject.  Genma may not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer, nor was he known for his tact; still, even he had enough sense to realize that a direct approach wasn't what this particular job called for.  But the mere fact that Genma knew a subtle approach was required didn't mean that he'd been able to come up with one.   Genma typically had all of the subtlety of week-dead mackerel, except when it came to manipulating his son.  Fortunately for Genma, Soun solved his problem by bringing the issue up himself.

 "So, Saotome.  It's good to see Nabiki and Ranma getting along so well, don't you think?"

_An Opening!_ Genma smiled ingenuously.  "Funny you should mention that, Soun ol' buddy..."

********

Meanwhile, the respective subjects of this parental concern were rapidly approaching the school gate, running because their little detour had made them late.

 "So that's your family Doctor, huh?  Isn't he kinda young?"

 "He's a chiropractor..."  Akane puffed

...they don't have to go to school as long." Nabiki finished.

 "You both like him, don't you?"

 "Yeah..."

 "...so?"

Ranma nodded.  By now he'd more or less become used to their bifurcated answers.  "He's male, isn't he?  I thought Akane hated boys."

"That's right!"  Akane replied as the school gates came into sight.  "I...HATE...BOYS!"

Suddenly, a small mob of boys rushed out of the gate to confront them, shouting "Akane and Nabiki Tendo!"  Ranma's eyes widened in shock as they mobbed the conjoined girls from all sides, shouting things like "sell me your panties" and "show me your tits!"

 "Out of our way...." Nabiki cried.

 "....we're late!" Akane shouted

Ranma jumped to one side as Akane and Nabiki waded through the crowd of boys like a bulldozer cutting across a cornfield:  Not particularly fast, at least by Ranma's standards, but nothing was left standing in their wake.  Watching them, Ranma had to admit that the girls, while nowhere near his league, were still fairly decent martial artists.  Actually, given that each only controlled half of their conjoined body, they were incredible martial artists.  Their ability to look in two directions at once did seem to compensate somewhat for what they lacked in speed.

Besides, it wasn't like they were facing world-class opposition here.  None of their opponents were in anything remotely resembling decent physical shape.   Sure, the boys in the mob did run the whole gamut from the skinny to the obese, but the distribution was heavily weighted towards both extremes with few in the middle: the only attributes they all seemed to have in common were acne and greasy hair. At least one pair of taped eyeglasses was in evidence, and the whole crew wasn't producing enough fighting spirit to snuff a candle.  Finally, their "battle cries" were all propositions to the conjoined girls lewd enough to make a sailor blush.  

_Geeks..._  Ranma realized suddenly. _Geeks...and Nerds...and_ **_Perverts_**_?___

High above the melee, Kasumi looked over the balcony railing and sighed.  "Your poor sisters..." someone muttered behind her. "...every morning."  Suddenly, Kasumi noticed Ranma perched on the wall, looking thoroughly befuddled.   "Ranma, get in this school right now!"   

Ranma looked up and spotted Kasumi looking down from the third-floor balcony.  "But..." he objected, pointing to where the twins were grimly making hash out of the last few survivors.

 "Don't worry about them.  Do you honestly think they're in any danger from that lot?"

Ranma wrenched his gaze back to the fight.  Akane and Nabiki were approaching the last pervert standing, a skinny kid who appeared to be bouncing up and down in gleeful anticipation.  The kid squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation of the blow, but the girls made no attempt to swing at him; instead, they merely stalked past with a stereo "hmmph."

The boy opened his eyes.  "Hey, aren't you going to hit me too?"

Akane shot him a glare over her shoulder.  "You're disgusting."

The boy started dancing around them. "But you gotta hit me!  I need you to hit me!  C'mon, please..."

The twins stopped and rounded on him slowly, speaking in unison, their harmonized voices literally dripping with loathing.  "We're not going to hit you, and that's final.  Now go away!"

 "Awww" the boy pouted, clearly disappointed. "There's such a thing as being _too_ sadistic, you know." 

Up on the balcony, the girl behind Kasumi mused.  "He's right, you know.  A true sadist _wouldn't_ hurt a masochist."  Kasumi turned to look at her, and she dropped her eyes and went inside.

Down below, Akane surveyed the carnage grimly "Every day they do this..."

"...what a drag." Nabiki finished glumly.

Ranma jumped down off the wall and approached the twins, groping for something to say.  He decided to try humor.  "Man, you two are really popular, aren't you?"

It was a bad choice.  Nabiki frowned and Akane glowered.  "Boys are such ..._Perverts!"_

A tenor voice interrupted. "Certainly this pathetic lot will never have their way with you, Akane Tendo."

Akane rolled her eyes and adopted a resigned expression.  "Oh…."

"… Upperclassman Kuno." Nabiki sighed wearily.

Ranma looked over to see a tall, curly-haired boy wearing a Kendo outfit without the armor, carrying a bokken over his shoulder and sniffing a rose.  He flicked the rose to Akane.  "Come my fierce Tigress.  Let me free you from your durance vile."

Ranma blinked.  For once, Nabiki looked even angrier than Akane.  "What the heck is he talking about?" He asked her.

The Kendoka swiveled and pointed his bokken at Ranma.  "You there.  What is your relationship to Akane's evil doppelganger?"

Ranma had no idea what a doppelganger was, but one glance at the hurt look that crossed Nabiki's face was enough.  Besides, here was a chance to work out the frustrations of the past few days.  He gave the taller boy a fierce smile. "I'm Ranma Saotome, the heir to the Saotome School of indiscriminate grappling..." he told him as he handed his school bag to Nabiki and took stance.  "And I accept your challenge."

And, just as he expected, the taller boy responded in kind.  And suddenly nothing that had been bothering him mattered any more--not his curse, not the unwanted engagement, or the fact that he was once again starting over as a stranger in a strange town.   At home once more in his art, Ranma smiled grimly and strode forward into battle.

*******

Meanwhile, back at the Dojo, Genma wasn't making much progress in his attempt to woo Soun away from his dream of marrying Nabiki to Ranma.   Hard as it was to believe, the man didn't even seem to recognize that there was anything _wrong_ with the girl.

Soun flopped his hand dismissively.  "Now, now, Saotome.  Akane will come around eventually.  You'll see."

_But I don't **want** Akane to come around.  I want her to..._ Suddenly Genma's eyes widened.  There was a line of attack that would have never occurred to him!

*******

Tatewaki Kuno, Junior, age 17, stood tall and straightened his hair, trying to arrange it to obscure the kanji-shaped bruise on his forehead.  Much as he liked to lord it over the freshmen, he was approaching a senior here, and it would not do to seem unworthy.  Like many would-be social climbers, Kuno firmly adhered to a policy of 'kiss up and kick down' in the finest Japanese tradition.

 "Fair Tendo-sempai, I would have a word with you."

Kasumi looked up at Tatewaki Kuno's entreaty and smiled.  Not that that in itself meant anything, because the eldest Tendo daughter always smiled.  She'd smiled in the face of earthquakes, tornados, typhoons, floods, and fires.  Even something as horrible as a Pokémon TV marathon or a Keanu Reeves film festival was utterly incapable of dimming her characteristic expression.  In fact, among the student body at Furinkan there was much speculation about what would take to actually make Kasumi stop smiling, at least among those with a very macabre turn of mind.  Everyone else pretty much agreed that the whole concept was far too horrific to even contemplate.  

"Yes, Tatewaki-kun?"  Kasumi beamed up at him.  True, Kuno was the jerk who harassed her little sisters daily, but that didn't mean she had to be _unpleasant_ about it.  Being Kasumi, she was certain she could convince him to see the light, given sufficient time.

Kuno bowed obsequiously.  "Fair Tendo-sempai, I would know who it is who interferes with my intentions for your fair sister."

Now that should have dimmed Kasumi's smile a little, if she'd been thinking clearly.  Unfortunately for all concerned she was still so caught up in the pleasant prospect of her sister's engagement that her guard was down.  "Oh.  Do you mean Ranma? Ranma Saotome?  He's her fiancé."

"WHAT?"  Kuno began, clenching his fists and addressing the ceiling.  "Never!  I…"  He suddenly remembered to whom he was speaking and cut himself off in mid-rant.  Fortunately, for him, Kasumi's thoughts were elsewhere.  "Er, ah…yes, thank you, Tendo-sempai."  He bowed and took his leave just as the teacher came in and began outlining today's history lesson on the chalkboard

Kasumi was still daydreaming about the wedding she was going to organize when the true import of Kuno's reaction sunk in, and her expression changed.  Fortunately, everyone's attention was on the chalkboard, so no one was directly in the line of fire when Kasumi's smile finally flickered and died.

Five rows ahead of her, the teacher looked up in irritation.  _Damned fluorescent tubes must be failing again. _

********

Ranma sighed and shifted his buckets, eyeing the water in them warily.  Ever since he'd been cursed, water seemed to seek him out, and standing here holding two buckets full of the stuff seemed to be tempting fate just a little too much.

He fixed his gaze on the wall across the corridor.  It figured.  The first period of his first day at his new school and he'd already been in a fight and was already doing bucket duty. He'd never liked this particularly fiendish form of punishment.  You'd think that just standing here holding a couple of kilograms water wouldn't be all that burdensome for a martial artist, and it wasn't, at least to start with.  But after a while the handles cut into your hands and the weight would really drag on your shoulders, and slowly but surely the discomfort would build up…by the end of an hour you'd be willing to do almost anything to get some relief, and your hands would be cramped all day.  

Worse, the sword bruise on his neck was starting to itch like crazy, and he didn't have a free hand to scratch it with.  _Who would've thought that posturing clown would be that fast?  I guess I'm going to have to take him a little more seriously next time._

Oh, well.  At least he wasn't stuck out here alone, though at this point the girls' companionship was a decidedly mixed blessing. He stole a glance at the twins beside him.  Akane was fuming, while Nabiki just looked glum.

"Akane/Nabiki, Akane/Nabiki." Akane was muttering. "Jerk."

_You mean she isn't still mad at me? _"Huh?"

Nabiki looked over at him.  Ranma had noticed that they'd quite pointedly stood to his right so he was on her side.  "Shhh.  We're not supposed to talk, but…"

"…we can whisper if we're careful not to get caught."  Akane finished for her.

"Sorry."  Ranma husked.  Akane went on muttering.  "What are you so angry about?" he asked at last.

"I hate it when he runs our names together like that," Akane hissed. "'You're late, Miss Tendo'" she quoted acidly.

Nabiki rolled her eyes.  "She's mad because the teacher refuses to recognize that we're two separate people."  She took in Ranma's quizzical expression.  "Well, maybe not _separate_ exactly, but you know what I mean: individuals."

"Why doesn't he just accept it? It can't be that hard."  Akane fumed.  

It suddenly occurred to Ranma that perhaps the teacher treated them as one person so he wouldn't feel guilty about giving them both bucket duty over one of Akane's little outbursts, though he wisely didn't say anything. 

Akane took an angry breath.  "Anyway, this is all _your_ fault, Ranma."

Ranma bristled.  "My fault?  How can this be my fault?  It was your fight."

"Yes, but we always finish our fight…" Akane looked away

"…before school starts."  Nabiki nodded. 

Ranma, reminded of the fight, looked vaguely disturbed.  "What was that all about anyway?"  Akane grimaced.  Nabiki looked at the floor, a haunted expression on her face.

"It's Kuno…" Akane muttered.  "He's obsessed with me, but neither of us can stand him.  Unfortunately, he's somehow gotten it into his head that Nabiki is poisoning my mind against him and I'd love him back if he could only free me from my 'evil doppelganger'."  

"Huh?"  

Nabiki looked up.  "He wants to separate us, though in a pinch he'd probably be willing to settle for cutting off my head."

_Oh, is that all_.  Suddenly the full implications of that statement hit home and he nearly dropped his buckets.  He turned a shocked gaze back on his odd companions.  "But… you'd die." A genius Ranma was not, but he was also far from stupid:  Even he could see that the two half-girls couldn't possibly be separated.

Nabiki gave him a wan smile, while Akane was looking at him speculatively.  "Oh, so you noticed that, have you?" she muttered sarcastically.  "You're not quite as dumb as you look, Saotome."

Ranma gritted his teeth.   "Well excuse me for caring."

Nabiki blew out her breath.  "Give Kuno a little credit sis.  _He_ doesn't think he's going to kill us."

Ranma looked puzzled.  _How can he possibly believe that cutting someone in half won't kill them?_

Nabiki seemed to read his expression.  "He claims to know about a magic sword that would separate us without hurting us…"

Akane huffed.  "…as if we'd ever want such a thing."

That one puzzled Ranma.  "You mean it would make you into two normal people?"  Belatedly, he realized that he'd spoken without thinking again.  Nabiki looked downcast and Akane's expression slammed closed like a steel door.  She turned her head away with a muffled "hmmph!"   There was a long, uncomfortable silence.  

Suddenly, Nabiki looked up at him, a poisonously sweet smile on her face.  "Hey Akane…do you feel normal?  I sure do."   She lowered her bucket, and quickly ran her hand down her side from her shoulder to her waist.  "Let's see.  One arm, one leg, one sister…" she reached up and cupped Akane's chin.  "…yep.  All normal."  They bent to retrieve her bucket.

Akane's smile became a perfect match for her twin's.  "Yep.  Now that you mention it, Sis, I feel _normal_ too.  The same _normal _way I've felt every other day of my life."  She looked over at their companion, and almost giggled despite her anger.  Ranma was doing a remarkably good imitation of a carp--which was why he nearly missed seeing the bucketful of water that suddenly came flying his way from up the hall.

Ranma leaped out of the way of the torrent, careful not to spill his own buckets in the process. _Damn it, the last thing I want is for people to find out about my curse.  _"Hey, what's the big idea?"

Tatewaki Kuno stood there, an empty bucket in his hands.  He dropped the bucket onto the floor and somehow produced a bokken from somewhere.  "Never, Saotome.  Never!  I will never accept your engagement to the fair Akane!"

There was a long pause.  "Actually, Kuno-chan,"  Nabiki corrected him, "Ranma is _my_ fiancée."

Stunned, Kuno stood up out of his stance "Oh, really?"  He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.  "Ahhhh… whoops, sorry, my mistake.  Maybe we can double-date sometime." 

Suddenly, the classroom windows slid open behind them.  "Fiancee?"  "With THEM?" "Way to go Nabiki!"  "But I thought Akane _hated _boys."  "Man, what kind of a pervert _is_ he?"  

"I'm not a…"  "It was our fathers'..."  "It wasn't our…"  Ranma, Nabiki, and Akane all began to object at once.

Suddenly, Kuno seemed to remember something.  Like just who had embossed "jerk" in bruises on his forehead that morning.   One could almost see the gears in his head grinding as he slowly lifted his bokken into guard position.   "But wait...If you are engaged to the foul demon that possesses my fair Akane, then you must be in league with her too!  Foul sorcerer, I will…"

"Tatewaki-kun!"  a musical voice called out behind him.

Kuno froze, then turned slowly.  One look at the person standing behind him and his bokken slipped from nerveless fingers.  It was Kasumi Tendo…looking _vexed_.  There was a collective gasp from the class at this hitherto unthinkable occurrence.  One look at the tableau made by Kuno, Ranma and her little sisters and her expression slowly shifted beyond vexed, nearly all the way to _peeved_.  There were soft thumps in the background as some of the weaker students fainted, overcome. 

Kasumi just stood there for a long moment, looking Kuno up and down like a drill sergeant who had just spotted the perfect candidate for a world pushup record attempt.  Everyone flinched involuntarily when she opened her mouth, though her voice sounded as mild as ever.

"Tatewaki-kun, I am most disappointed in you.  As for the rest of you…" Everyone else, even Ranma, took an involuntary step backwards.  "Ranma and my little sister's engagement is their business and a matter of family honor.  It is none of your affair."  She turned back to Kuno.  "Come with me, Tatewaki-kun.  We must discuss your behavior."

Everyone shuddered as Kasumi led the unresisting Kuno away.   The class blew out the breaths they'd been collectively holding, and turned back to their classroom, leaving Ranma, Akane and Nabiki, still holding their buckets, alone in the hall once more.

After a long moment, Nabiki shook her head.  "Akane""

"Yeah, sis?"

"Ever wonder what would happen if Kasumi actually got pissed?"

Akane shuddered.  Some things just didn't bear thinking about.

*******  

_Normal..._

Halfway through lunch period, I suddenly realized just what was so odd about this school:  It was all just too, well, _normal_. 

Now I'll admit that normal ain't something I've had much experience with in my life.  Heck, I've spent nearly my whole life living on the road and training in the art, and that ain't exactly what most folks would call normal.   And that was before we went to China or even heard of Jusenkyo, let alone fallen in.  And ever since Jusenkyo I'd pretty much completely given up on ever feeling normal again.  I mean, when I turn into a girl, I _really_ turn into a girl, and that's...just..._wrong_.  What's worse, I can't even say _how_ it feels wrong, 'cause I just don't have the words for it.  Shoot, I don't think there even_ are_ any words for it.  Let's just say I've learned stuff about girls that no boy should ever have to know, and leave it at that.

But here I was, barely three weeks later, and somehow, everything seemed, well, _normal..._ and it shouldn't have.

I mean..._look_ at them.  Akane and Nabiki are just sitting over there smiling and joking with a couple of their friends, and everybody's acting like it's normal.  We're talking about a two-headed girl here, folks.  Two heads and everybody seems to think it's normal.

OK, so maybe they ain't really a two headed girl.  You gonna tell me that two half-girls fused together is any less weird?  Heck, if you'd dropped the pair of them into my _old _school, you would've had a bigger show than a lunar new year, a lantern festival and a Chinese acrobat circus all rolled into one.

Though, come to think of it, if you dropped _any_ girls into my old school, you probably would have had pretty much the same thing.  It was an all-boys school, after all.

Still, nobody here (with the exception of that first period teacher, and I had to agree with the girls, he was a jerk) seemed to pay the twins no special mind at all.  Oh, I mean, sure, everybody _knew_ they shared one body--nobody tried to call them to different sides of the room or nothing--they all just acted like it was just, well, normal.  And how normal is that?

The sound of someone clearing his throat softly beside me brought me back from my woolgathering.  A couple of boys stood there, looking at me.  I kept my face neutral, even though I was prepared to pound 'em if necessary.  Neither of them seemed to come from the morning's pervert brigade (they didn't have any bruises or grass stains, for one thing) but you never know.  Neither of them looked like they could give me any real trouble, anyway.

"Er...so you're Ranma?"  the lighter-haired one of the two asked me quietly.  I nodded cautiously.  "I'm Daisuke, and this is Hiroshi."

"Are you and Nabiki really engaged?"  Hiroshi asked suddenly.  I wasn't much able to hide my wince, so I looked away -- only to see the girls looking at me curiously.  So I looked back at the boys

"It wasn't my idea."  I told them.  "Our fathers arranged it before either of us...any of us..." I corrected, rolling my eyes.  "...were born, and I didn't even find out about it until just before I got here.  So you can imagine my surprise when I showed up and discovered that my so-called fiancée is half of somebody else."  

The two boys relaxed visibly.  "Ah, I see."  Daisuke responded.  "I mean, they are my friends and all -- I've known 'em both since kindergarten-- but actually marrying either one of them?  Ewww."  Behind him, Hiroshi nodded too, looking relieved.

I nodded in agreement.  "Yeah.  But we can't just get out of it either.  It's kind of a family honor thing.  So we just got to wait until our Fathers' come to their senses."

They nodded, and I relaxed too.  _Maybe, just maybe, everybody won't think I'm some kinda pervert after all_. I thought in momentary relief.  

_But only if I can somehow manage keep my curse hidden, that is... _

*********

"So, how the heck did you two manage to get engaged?"  Sayuri was asking.

Akane sighed.  "Not me, just Nabiki.  And it wasn't our idea!  It was arranged by our fathers before we were even born, if you can believe it.  And we only found out when we met him yesterday!  They didn't even bother ask us how we felt about it!"  

"So, how _do_ you feel about it?"

Akane was momentarily at a loss.  She'd been so angry about not being consulted that she hadn't even bothered to consider her own feelings, which were, in any event, much too complex to express to herself, let alone blurt out in school.  "I don't know.  I just don't see how it can work."  She admitted at last.

Yuka meanwhile, was leering at her twin.  "So, Nabiki...what's it like, being engaged to a hunk like that?"

Nabiki looked over at Yuka, a little surprised by the question.  Normally, she was the quiet half of the pair, leaving most of the conversation to her more outgoing sister.

_Let's see.  He turns into a girl, and he thinks we're freaks.  _"He's... really surprising.  Not what I expected at all."  She answered honestly.  

"He's just as perverted as any other boy."  Akane muttered.

"He is not!"  Nabiki responded hotly.  "You're just mad because he's a better martial artist than we are.  You haven't given him a chance."

"Hmmmm" Yuka and Sayuri exchanged looks.  "So Akane, you aren't too thrilled about this, I take it."

"That's putting it mildly."  Akane frowned.  "This guy's unbelievable.  He..."  she cut herself off suddenly, her unerring sister-sense warning her that Nabiki really didn't want her to mention Ranma's curse just yet.

"I still say you haven't not giving him a chance."  Nabiki muttered.  "You haven't been fair to Ranma since the first time you saw *him*."  

Akane blinked, a little taken aback by the implied criticism even though no one else could have possible detected the subtle stress Nabiki had put on the word 'him'.  Besides, she had to admit that her sister had a point.  She'd been plenty willing to be friends when they'd thought Ranma was a girl.  It was only when he'd been revealed as a boy that she'd started feeling uncomfortable.  And the worst thing was, she really couldn't explain _why_ Ranma made her feel uncomfortable, other than a vague sense that he somehow represented a threat to her relationship with Nabiki.   Still, Nabiki was right, she was being unfair.  "Sorry, sis." she subvocalized, knowing that only Nabiki could hear her.

Sayuri exchanged looks with Yuka before turning back to Nabiki.  "You mean Akane took an instant dislike to him?  As in, dislike-at-first-sight kind of dislike to him?  Oh Nabiki, you poor thing!  You know what that means, don't you?" 

If anything, Akane might have been more put out then Nabiki by this odd reaction, though it would have been a tough call.  "No, what?" 

"Why, it means that he's destined to be Akane's one true love, of course!  Fated lovers never get along at their first meeting!"  Seeing their uncomprehending expression, she pulled a dog-eared paperback from her book bag.  "It's in all of the literature!" 

Nabiki snatched the book from her hand.  It was a trashy romance novel, the kind with a lurid cover that prominently featured a man with long hair and bulging pectoral muscles.  She stared at it for a long frozen moment.  "I think Sayuri's lost it, Sis," she muttered, feeling strangely relieved as she said it.

Sayuri, meanwhile, was fighting a losing battle attempting to keep her face straight.  Yuka didn't even try.  "Oh, if only you two could have seen your faces."  She chortled, shaking her head slowly.

Akane and Nabiki couldn't help it.  They threw back their heads and joined in the laughter.

*********

Nabiki looked over at her reluctant fiancé as they made their way home from school.  He seemed rather subdued for some reason.  "Is something wrong, Ranma?"

Ranma looked back at her like she was nuts.  "Is school always that crazy around here?"  _Normal?  How the hell could I have ever thought that place was too normal?_

Akane gave him a wry grin.  She seemed to be in much better spirits since lunchtime, and Ranma strongly suspected that it was at his expense.  "Well, if by that you mean 'has anybody been dumb enough to jump out of a third story window before' I guess the answer would have to be no.   What on earth possessed you to do that?  You're lucky there was a pool there." 

"Hey, it wasn't my fault bokken-boy came back looking for another round!  And fallin' into the pool wasn't lucky; it nearly gave away my curse!"  Ranma shuddered with the memory.  _As if it weren't bad enough, that freakin' pervert **groped** me!_  He thought, rubbing at his right nipple unconsciously - it still hurt, even in his boy form, though not quite so much.  Worse, he couldn't quite shake the feeling that he'd been violated.

"What would be so bad about people finding out about your curse?"  Nabiki asked him, honestly puzzled.

"You think I want everybody to know I'm a freak?"  Ranma shot back without thinking.  Then noticed that the twins were no longer beside him. "Um...."

Akane and Nabiki were glaring at him, arms crossed in annoyance.  Akane was tapping her foot. "Well excuuuuuse us," She growled, "But some of us can't hide the fact that we're freaks."  Just then, a passing car hit one a puddle left over from yesterday's downpour.  The resulting splash thoroughly soaked Ranma, though curiously the twins somehow remained untouched.

Ranma hung her head in defeat.  "Can we just go home now?"

Akane smirked.  "You know, you might want to stop using the f-word..."

"...'cause it just might be divine retribution."  Nabiki grinned.

Ranma just didn't have the will to argue anymore.  "Whatever.  Let's go home, I need a bath." The three of them started back up the roadway, Ranma lagging a little behind.

"Ranma?"   Ranma looked up.  Nabiki was looking back at her curiously.  Once again, she noticed that she'd somehow ended up on her side, and couldn't help wondering if it was deliberate. "If it's any consolation, _I_ don't think you're a freak.  Race you home!"  The two sisters exchanged a sidelong grin, then tore away up the road at a full run.

Ranma blinked slowly as she watched their top-heavy form rapidly retreating in the distance.  _You know, that actually does make me feel a little better._  "Hey, wait up!"

*******

Ranma finally caught up with them just as they reached the gate, happy that the conjoined girls seemed to finally be in good spirits again.  That's when Nabiki gave him a look that set his martial artist's danger sense tingling.

"Hey Ranma, let's go spar a little."

"What?"  Akane and Ranma asked in unison, a little too loudly.  They blinked at each other in surprise for a moment.

"I don't hit..." Ranma started

 "but he's a..." Akane began.

Nabiki frowned.  "Akane, didn't you ask Ranma to teach us some of his moves?"  Inside, she was grinning, confident that a martial arts challenge would be the quickest way to get her uptight sister to lighten up a little.

"Yeah, but that was before..." Akane objected, trailing off when she realized that she didn't really want to finish the thought.

"Before what?  Before we found out that he was really a boy?  So what?  They're the same moves, and he's the same person.  We just know more about him now than we did then."

"But I don't hit girls."  Ranma objected  

Akane and Nabiki bristled at that.  "What's the matter..." Akane growled

"...afraid to take us seriously?"  Nabiki glared.  She gestured towards the pond.  "OK, what about if you're a girl too?" _Like right now, or have you forgotten about that already?_

Ranma held up her hands in defeat.  "OK, OK, I'll spar with you."

As he half-expected, that caused another radical mood shift.  "Great!" Akane chirped.

"...we'll go get changed."  Nabiki smiled cutely.

_Sheesh__._Ranma thought as she stood there in the Genkan, watching them ascend the stairs.  _Now what do I do?_  She crossed her arms under her breasts, then did a double-take.  _Besides getting some hot water, I mean?_

*********

"HAI-YAHH!  YAH! YAH!"

Akane was furious.  This new sparring match was going pretty much the same as their first one had, in that Ranma never swung at them.  In fact, he never even so much as blocked, just dodged.  It was infuriating!  She could tell that even Nabiki was getting frustrated.

Unfortunately, Ranma didn't even notice, he was so absorbed in watching them, trying to decipher the unique and fascinating ways in which their conjoined body moved.  They were totally unlike any other martial artists he'd ever faced. 

Finaly, the twins had to stop for a breather.  "Swing at us, damn you!  Take us seriously!" Akane growled at the pig-tailed boy..

"Huh?"  Ranma asked, dropping lightly to the ground just out of reach.  "But I thought I told you I don't hit girls."

The girls expressed their frustration in stereo.  "RanMAAA!"

Ranma waved his hands in propitiation. "OK, OK, we'll work up to it, I promise.  I just wanted to see you in action for a bit first."

_I knew it, he is a pervert._ Akane thought.  Aloud she gritted.  "Why?"

Nabiki frowned.  "Yeah, Ranma, why?"

"Cause I needed to see what you could do already before I could teach you anything."  Ranma grinned.  "And maybe I wanted to make ya sweat a little bit."

"Jerk."  Akane took an offhand swipe at him, which he easily dodged.  

"So what did you see, Ranma?"  Nabiki asked, trying hard to be civil despite her frustration.

"Well, I know how you two slowpokes can get faster, for one thing."

"Really?  How so?" Akane gritted, even as Nabiki swore to get even with him for that 'slowpoke' remark.  The twins shared one of their sidelong glances, their emotional temperature pretty close to boiling

"It's simple, see?"  Ranma was gesturing enthusiastically, completely missing the fact that Akane's glower was steadily draining onto Nabiki's face like water draining from one canal lock to another, and woe be unto him when the two levels equalized.  "All you two gotta do is learn how to fight like a boy...."

Poor Ranma was so caught up in his lecturing that he completely missed the danger signs.  Over time he'd come to learn that when Nabiki started looking like Akane, duck.  He turned back just in time to receive his first lesson in that peculiar aspect of Tendo twin psychology.

"Ranma you JERK!"

KA-POW!

*********

Dinner that night was nearly as tense as breakfast had been.

Once again, Genma didn't have much to say.  His plan for pulling Akane aside and subtly encouraging her antipathy towards his son had run into its first obstacle when he realized that there was no way he _could_ pull Akane aside:  Anything he said to her had to be said to Nabiki too, and if he alienated too many Tendos, he'd have to go back to living in a tent.  So he decided to hold back until he'd further refined his strategy.  After all, wasn't it the great Sun-Tsu who'd said "On dangerous ground maneuver, on desperate ground fight"?  Genma had added his own little corollary:  "on unrewarding ground, dither." Besides, Ranma seemed to be fully capable of alienating the conjoined girls himself, if the atmosphere around the table was any indication.

Kasumi glanced around the table and suppressed a sigh.  Apparently, things were not going well between her little sisters and Ranma.  While no one would accuse Kasumi of being intellectually brilliant, she was quite good at understanding feelings, and the feelings that she was detecting now weren't happy ones.  After a lifetime of living with her conjoined sisters the signs of their suppressed fury were as apparent to their big sister as a neon sign, and the source wasn't all that hard to identify either.  Akane and Nabiki weren't openly berating Ramna, but they were making a big show of blatantly ignoring him.  Even if they weren't, the blazing red handprint on his cheek would have been a dead giveaway.

"Akane, Nabiki…is anything wrong?"

"Ask Ranma."  Akane sniffed.

"Apparently, _he_ thinks girls can't do martial arts." Nabiki huffed.

"That isn't what I said!"  Ranma hissed.  "All I said was that you two need to learn to fight more like a boy!"

"Like that's any different?"  The conjoined girls bristled in unison.

Kasumi sighed.  "Enough, you two.  I'm sure Ranma had a good reason for saying that.  Didn't you?"

Ranma blinked, surprised that Kasumi seemed to be taking his side.  "Well, yeah."

"So what is it?"  Kasumi asked, smiling encouragingly

"What's what?" Ranma asked, confused

_Jeez, this boy could try the patience of a saint._  Kasumi groaned inwardly, even as she kept her smile steady.  "The reason, silly."

"But I don't wanna get hit again!"

"I promise you they won't hit you."  Kasumi glared at her sisters.  "Assuming it's a good reason, of course." She amended after a moment.  

Caught in the velvet vise of Kasumi's gaze, and knowing that escape was impossible, Ranma slumped.  "Oh.  Well, it's like this.  Boys are pretty top-heavy, compared to girls."

"And how would you know that?"  Akane scoffed, intrigued despite herself.

Ranma's expression went totally dead.  "I know, Akane. Trust me, I know."

_His curse, right._"Oh.  Sorry."

Ranma blinked. _Akane actually apologizes?_ Encouraged, he continued a little more hopefully. "Anyway, you two ain't like most girls.  You're top heavy like a boy."

"What makes you say that?" Akane asked dangerously.  Nabiki frowned. _I__f he makes  another reference our middle breast so help me I'll **help** Akane kill him, fiancé or no.._

Clueless of his danger, Ranma just looked at them like they were crazy.  "'cause you've got two heads, of course."

"Oh."  Akane and Nabiki muttered in unison, then again as the light truly dawned.  "Ohhhh!"  The two of them relaxed visibly.  Ranma relaxed himself and dove into his rice bowl, relieved.

The girls were content to let him eat while they had what appeared to be a long conversation consisting entirely of blinks and twitches.  Finally, Akane tapped her lips thoughtfully.  "So when you said we needed to learn how to fight more like a boy..."

"...you were trying to tell us about our center of gravity?" Nabiki asked.

Ranma nodded in relief.  They weren't going to kill him.  "Yep.  Only you went psycho on me before I could explain it."

There was a long moment of silence as the twins exchanged one of their sidelong glances.  

"We're really sorry, Ranma."  They muttered in unison.  Akane actually looked more contrite for once.

Ranma, bless him, actually looked startled that anyone would apologize to him - for anything..  "Th-That's OK, no problem," he stammered at last.

Kasumi smiled too.  _Not the most polite of responses, perhaps, but we can always work on his manners later._

Genma, meanwhile, looked thoughtful.  _Hmmm.__  Perhaps I should try working my alienation strategy on Ranma instead._

*******

As always, Akane and Nabiki prepared for bed in silence.  No words were necessary, even when Nabiki helped Akane deal with her long hair.  Personally, Nabiki had always thought that long hair was more of nuisance than anything else: that was why she'd always insisted on wearing her own hair short.  But she'd never even considered questioning her twin on her choice of hairstyle. Akane was free to wear her hair any way she wanted.  The fact that Nabiki had to help her with it simply wasn't an issue: Akane had their right hand, and Nabiki had their left.  They had to work together if they wanted to get anything done.  When every step you take -- indeed, every breath you take-- is the result of a compromise, you tend to compromise without even thinking.  

"So, sis."  Nabiki asked, after they'd finally gotten settled in bed.  "What do you think of Ranma now?"

Akane sighed.  She knew this was coming, even though she didn't want to deal with it right now.  "Oh, he's OK, I guess."

"Meaning?"

"I'm willing to put up with him.  It's not like we've got any choice anyway."

"Really?"  Nabiki asked hopefully, and for some inexplicable reason that made Akane feel a little panicked.

"As a friend!  We can't marry him sis, and you know that!"  She scowled darkly.  "He better not get any ideas, either."

"What sort of ideas?"  Nabiki asked, puzzled.

"Ideas about…necking and stuff."  Akane mumbled uncomfortably.

Nabiki was seized by a wicked impulse.  "But what if I want to neck with him?"

Akane blushed, mortified.  They'd never even discussed anything like this before.   "Er, ah…"

Nabiki pressed her advantage.  "How would that be different from one of my other interests, like yoga?"

Akane swallowed.  They never interfered in each other's interests; it was part of their unspoken compact.  "Um, I guess." She muttered at last.  "But if his fingers stray so much as one centimeter over to my side, I'm going to give him a fat lip!"

Nabiki laughed.  "Relax, sis.  You know I'm kidding.  We've barely met, for cripes sake."  Suddenly she sobered, realizing that Akane wasn't responding as she normally would.  "Sis?  Are you OK?"

"Nabiki?"  Akane responded in a tiny voice. "Please don't tease me like that."

"He scares you, doesn't he?"  Nabiki realized suddenly.  "Why?"

"I don't know why."  Akane confessed.  "He just does, all right?" 

"It'll be OK sis, I promise."  Nabiki said quietly.

Akane smiled, irrationally cheered by the reassurance.  "I know it will.  Now you go to sleep.  It's my turn."

"Uh-huh."  Nabiki yawned, turning to give Akane a peck on the cheek.  "G'night sis.  Love you."

"I love you too."

After Nabiki drifted off Akane tried to read, but without much success, all too aware of her twin's breath tickling her ear in perfect synchronization with her own.

The truth was, she was afraid of Ranma. she just couldn't for the life of her couldn't explain  _why_, even to herself, other than a general sense that he presented a threat to her relationship with Nabiki.

And any threat to their relationship simply couldn't be tolerated.  Nabiki was more than just a sister--she was literally half of Akane herself--and vice-versa, of course.  Without their constant, and unthinking, cooperation, neither of them could function.  As a consequence, Akane and Nabiki loved each other in a way that other people couldn't even begin to comprehend.   Their love went far beyond normal filial love, or even romantic love in some ways.  It wasn't erotic love, though given the way they were built there had to be elements of that too.  No, for lack of a better term, they were soulmates, if only because they had no other choice.  And they'd both always assumed that they always would be.

But now, for the first time, Akane wondered.  _If Nabiki really does fall in love with Ranma, and I don't, where does that leave me?_  Akane could already feel a distance in their relationship that hadn't been there the day before yesterday.  Was the mere fact that she felt unwilling to confess her fears to Nabiki a sign that what she feared most was already happening?

*******

Ranma took a deep breath as she reached top of the stairs and mopped her wet bangs back from her brow nervously.  Even after nearly three weeks her cursed form still felt a little strange, but she was getting used to it.  _That_ little fact offered her absolutely no comfort whatsoever.  Instead, it scared her silly because getting used to being a girl had to be the first step on the path towards losing her manhood.  In fact, the very thought that she might actually get used to turning into a girl was so disturbing that she'd never, ever even considered doing it voluntarily.

Until now, that is.

Ranma crept over to the twin's door and knocked tentatively.

"Who is it?"  Akane's voice came out.  At least, he hoped it was Akane's voice.

"It's me."  Ranma stage-whispered.  "Can we talk?"

"Ranma?  Why does your voice sound funny?

Ranma bridled.  "'cause I'm a girl right now, dummy.  Now let me in before someone spots me doin' this."

"Oh."  She sounded uncertain.  "I can't.  The door's locked.'

"Can't you unlock it?"

"Of course I can't unlock the door, dummy.  Nabiki's asleep."

Ranma scowled.  Of course the damn door would be locked.  After what had happened this morning, he'd have been very surprised if it hadn't been.  And with Nabiki asleep, there was no way Akane could get to the door to unlock it.  "Gimme a sec." he muttered, then turned and stalked away.

Inside, Akane blew out her breath in relief at the sound of retreating footsteps.  She briefly considered yelling for Kasumi, but she really didn't want to wake Nabiki if she didn't have to.  Especially since Nabiki would tease her for being such a sissy.  She was trying to concentrate on her novel when she heard a hair-raising "psst" from the window.  She turned her head and saw a familiar looking redhead peering past the screen.

"Go 'way, Ranma.  I don't want to talk to you." she growled, looking around for something that might serve as a weapon.  Unfortunately, the only thing that came to hand was her book, and that was only a paperback.  "Why are you doing this?"

"Don't get your underwear in a bunch, tomboy.  I'm only doin' this cuz Nabiki asked me to."  The boy/girl muttered sullenly.

"Fine, we've talked.  Now go away."

"I want to.  Unfortunately, I'm stuck here until we get this stupid engagement thing sorted out."

"There's no way we're getting married."

"I ain't _your_ fiance."

"Jerk!  You know what I'm talking about.  You can't marry either of us without marrying both of us, and you sure as hell can't marry us both now, can you?"

"Dammit, when are you gonna realize we're on the same side here?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"_You_ don't wanna get married, an' _I_ don't wanna get married.  Isn't that the same side?"

Akane felt irrationally irritated by that.  "What's the matter?  Don't want to get stuck with a freak?"

Goaded, Ranma growled.  "Dammit, I ain't ready to marry anyone yet!  Besides..." she paused to swallow the sudden lump in her throat.  "I'm a freak too, remember?"

That made Akane pause.  Hotheaded as she may have been, insensitive she was not.  "Ranma..." she asked after a long moment.  "Why _are_ you a girl right now, anyway?"

Ranma scrunched her eyes shut and pivoted to let her head slump back against the window.  "No reason.  Never mind."

"You did it for me, didn't you."  Akane continued wonderingly.  "You figured I wouldn't want to talk to you if you were a boy, didn't you?"

"Of course not!"  Ranma lied unconvincingly.  "Though you gotta admit, it would be kinda hard for me to do anything hentai to ya this way, now wouldn't it?"

_Or it could mean that you're a much bigger pervert than I even dared to imagine.  _Akane briefly considered getting angry about it.  _Thinks I'm a lesbo, does he?_ Then she dismissed the thought. She'd already lost the grip on her anger, and found she didn't really want to recover it.  "So you don't want to get married.  But Nabiki..."

"Yeah."  Ranma confirmed miserably.  "I don't wanna hurt her feelings, either." 

Akane was silent for a long moment.  Then she swallowed and made a decision.  "OK, Ranma.  I'll try to get along with you, OK?  But you have to try to take things a little easier too.  I really don't like getting insulted all the time."

Ranma bit back a sharp retort just in time.  "Yeah, okay, I guess."

"Then we're agreed.  Good _night_, Ranma." Akane replied pointedly. _Jerk!_

"Yeah, good night to you too..." _Tomboy!_

**********

Authors note:  

For whatever reason, the first chapter of this little fic received more reviews than anything else I've ever posted.  Go figure.  Thanks to all of you for your kind and thoughtful reviews.  Hopefully, you'll be able to discern responses to your feedback in the text.

Note that the evolution of chapter 2 required a few conforming revisions to chapter 1.

******* OMAKE *******

Brock looked askance as Ash once again started rummaging in his backpack.  "Ash, are you really sure you want to do that?" As he spoke he and Pikachu shared glances:  both of them found their young friend's recent obsession with shiny, _deadly_ objects quite unsettling.

Ash waved breezily with his free hand as he located a magazine with the other.  "Don't worry.   I'm only going to fire a warning shot._"_  He squinted up at the looming, oddly-shaped balloon.  "Now where can I aim where it won't do any real damage?"

"With Jesse and James?  Between the ears ought to do it."  Misty muttered

-- "A Fist-full of Pokémon", chapter 5


	3. Chapter 3

Ranma's engagement to Nabiki would be tough enough without her tomboy sister Akane. Unfortunately the two girls are literally inseparable…they're conjoined twins!

**Two for the price of one**

A work of-fan fiction by Dan Stickney.

Ranma ½ is the property of Rumiko Takahashi.

**Chapter 3**

o00o

"…ood morning, Tokyo! It looks like it's going to be a…"

Kasumi groaned, rolling over and slapping the off button on her clock radio. _Oh my. _She blinked for a moment, trying to get her eyes to focus, as her highly-attuned senses detected a slight disturbance in the _wa_--the spirit--of her house. Two more blinks and she remembered: _Visitors...right. _She threw back her covers and swung her feet to the floor, her sensitive ears already detecting the sounds of heavy sparring emanating from the back yard. _Time to get breakfast going_. Standing, she crossed to her closet, yawning and stretching as she went. Then she stood there for a moment, absently scratching her crotch in a most unladylike manner (even Kasumi found it tough to be prim at 5:00 in the morning) as she considered what to wear. A casual observer, had any been present, would have noticed that the only options available appeared to be dresses, blouses, dresses, skirts, and still more dresses, her last pair of slacks having apparently died of loneliness years ago.

Sighing, she picked out the dress she _would_ be wearing if it wasn't a school day (magenta, off one shoulder) before she grabbed her uniform and turned to her dresser for fresh underclothes, stepping out of her underwear even as she crossed her arms above her head to remove her nightgown. Four quick pulls, one dip (to don her bra), three hooks, six buttons, one zip and one bow knot later she was crossing back to her vanity, picking up her hairbrush with one hand even as she tossed the nightgown onto the bed with the other. Touching up her luxuriant hair--her one vanity--and gathering it into a loose ponytail was but the work of moments because she always did her real brushing (100 strokes--and yes, she did count them) at bedtime. She smiled briefly at herself in the mirror before she glanced at the clock. It was barely 5:03 and she was already set to meet the day, instantly transformed from a teenaged girl sleepily scratching her genitals to a young woman so demure that one would hardly suspect she even _had_ genitals, let alone any reason to scratch them.

Not lingering to admire her reflection, the willowy girl headed directly for the kitchen, intent on putting the kettle on before she even visited the bathroom. In a way her morning routine served as a metaphor for her entire life, for Kasumi dressing was Kasumi at her essence: spare, economical, and not one move wasted. It was the way she did everything from housework to homework, an efficiency born of necessity during the years since mother died, years in which she'd been forced to refine the art of getting dressed -- among other things -- so she'd have time to get the things she needed to do finished before she got herself and her little sisters off to school.

_If only others could be as efficient_ she thought to herself as she headed for the stairs -- knocking softly on Akane and Nabiki's door as she went by -- though she didn't really mean it. Kasumi firmly believed that it had been worth sacrificing some of her own childhood to make the twins' own necessarily unique girlhoods as close to normal as possible. Let them be girls as long as they could: Childhood gave them a certain degree of protection against uncivil behavior -- at least from adults -- and God only knew what the conjoined girls would have to face when they were finally forced to grow up and become women.

Besides, if they got up any earlier, they might actually take a notion to help her in the kitchen, if only out of guilt, and God also only knew what sort of disaster that might prove to be. For Nabiki had so far proven completely disinterested in cooking while Akane was all too eager, and the combination of indifference on the one hand (literally) and impatience on the other (again, literally) had produced truly spectacular results, and not in any good sense of the word, either. Much as she prized harmony in her family, all in all Kasumi was happy to know that there was at least one thing her little sisters _couldn't_ agree on.

o00o

Ironically, Akane was actually fully awake as Kasumi passed by: Fully awake, and contemplating the bane of her existence, at least until Ranma had shown up: Nabiki was _not_ a morning person.

"Come _on_, sis." She pleaded for perhaps the fourth time.

'Lea'me 'lone, 'kane." Nabiki mumbled, rolling over and burying her head in their pillow. The fact that she couldn't do that without Akane's acquiescence --indeed, assistance-- went unremarked -- unnoticed, in fact -- by either of them. "lemme sleep."

Akane, on the other hand, had _her_ head on top of the pillow, her hand tucked under her chin. (Given the way that they were put together, one of them always had to be 'on the other hand' as it were, though it was usually Nabiki because Akane, being more impulsive, typically acted first, leaving Nabiki to be 'on the other hand' by default. But I digress.)

"Get _up_, Nabiki. The early bird gets the worm."

Nabiki came up for air. "Yeah, but the early worm gets eaten."

Akane rolled her eyes. "Your point, sis?"

Nabiki went back under. "Always determine if you're the bird or the worm before you stick your head up."

"All right 'worm', you asked for it." Akane muttered, aiming a poke at a particularly sensitive part of Nabiki's anatomy, causing the girl to practically levitate out of the pillow with a jerk.

"Ow, sis. I'm up, I'm up." Nabiki muttered, rubbing at her nipple even as she helped Akane lever their conjoined body upright. "I'd almost forgotten how much that smarts. Remind me to apologize to Ranma later."

"Apologize to Ranma? Why?"

"For poking her in the boob when she got here."

"Don't you mean 'him'?"

"Well, yeah, but it feels really funny saying 'poking him in the boob', doesn't it?"

"You sure got that right."

o00o

Kasumi looked up from her miso soup as the twins appeared in their running clothes at the kitchen doorway. "Don't take too long, OK?" she nodded at the two men sparring in the garden outside the window behind her. "There's liable to be a line for the furo." (Kasumi herself had long since become resigned to limiting her own baths to the evening, there simply wasn't time.)

The conjoined girls barely stopped to nod as they headed for the door. "'kay sis…

"…Love you…""

"...'Bye."

Kasumi shook her head and smiled after them, then assumed a more thoughtful expression as she returned her attention to the Saotome men's antics outside. Even though she had never practiced martial arts herself beyond basic kata for exercise (both her mother and father seemed to understand almost from birth that she was temperamentally unsuited to it) she had grown up in this dojo and thought she had a pretty good idea of what the art entailed, and so she always felt a vague sense of unreality watching Ranma and his father spar. Surely their blurring exchanges of blows faster than the eye could follow and roof-high leaps were all… illusion somehow. It was almost like watching a movie sometimes, except that no self-respecting director would ever film a fight scene using moves too fast for the audience to actually see.

Other than that, though, she was generally happy with the way things were turning out. Mr. Saotome, while gruff, treated her respectfully and expressed genuine appreciation for her cooking. Ranma, while perhaps a bit more loutish than most young men his age, was actually proving to be quite trainable -- given the proper stimuli, anyway. _If only he didn't talk like a dockworker._ Still, Kasumi was optimistic. With enough time and patience they might even be trained to pick up after themselves. It was no more than one could expect from men, really.

o00o

Genma squinted into the sunrise from his position atop the ridge of the Dojo roof. "Are you ready, Boy?"

Ranma smirked back from his position atop the walkway. "Heh. Bring it on, old man."

And so another day began, as they almost always did, in love and combat.

People who don't like Genma Saotome (and there's more than a few of them) often accuse him of being greedy, abusive, fat and lazy, but nothing could be further from the truth. Well, okay, so maybe it's not all _that_ far from the truth, but you have to admit that the characterization _is_ exaggerated.

...Somewhat, anyway.

Sure he was beefy. But under what little flab he had was an even heavier layer of solid muscle. Genma was one of those people who somehow managed to be both fit _and_ fat at the same time, like a sumo wrestler, or a football player. Think I'm joking? Let's see _you_ maintain a crane stance atop a three-meter bamboo pole. Stout Genma was, flabby he was not. One could speculate on what he might have accomplished if his ethics had been nearly as well developed as his physique. He may not have looked like much but he went toe-to-toe with Ranma on a daily basis and he usually came out on top. _You_ try it sometime.

As for the charge of laziness, no one who is truly lazy could ever become a high caliber martial artist, and even Genma's most serious detractors (and there's more than a few of those, too) had to admit that he was indeed talented in the art. (Besides, you don't see any of _them_ getting up before dawn every day to spar with the boy, do you?) Genma didn't see himself as lazy so much as 'focused' -- he didn't like to waste much energy on anything other than martial arts. In fact, he liked to think of himself as somewhat akin to a lion, snoozing to conserve his resources when he wasn't actually battling for supremacy. (Finished choking yet? To be honest, I don't buy it either, but hey, this _is_ Genma we're talking about.)

The truth was a little more prosaic, if less complimentary: Genma was sort of an idiot savant. A near genius when it came to the martial arts, but a total screwup otherwise. Since the art was pretty much the only thing he was actually good at, he just didn't bother doing much else. Any time not spent actually sparring was usually spent diligently thinking up new forms of training for the boy, a pursuit that could only be interrupted by the most pressing business, like breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, snacks, _shogi_ games with Soun, _Go _games with Soun, and his mid-morning and mid-afternoon naps.

As for abusive, _you_ try to come up with ever more advanced training regimes capable of challenging a martial arts prodigy like Ranma and see how abusive _you_ get. To give him his due, Genma honestly believed that he had Ranma's best interests at heart. He really and truly wanted Ranma to be the very best. So he worked very hard to make him the very best. Unfortunately for Ranma, Genma was also an idiot, and hard work plus incompetence always accomplishes far more damage than mere incompetence on its own. (Fear energetic stupidity: it's capable of doing a lot more harm than evil ever could.)

As for greedy…Well, there you have me. Genma _was_ greedy. So sue me. But as a life-long piker he was only greedy in little ways: otherwise he never would have been happy with the hand-to-mouth existence of an itinerant martial artist. But he was, mainly because (again) he wasn't much good at--or much interested in--anything else.

However, despite his manifold faults (Most of which his friends _and_ his enemies were in full agreement on) Genma was not an evil man. No, what Genma was _truly_ guilty of (besides the occasional larceny, burglary, forgery, and/or theft by illegal conversion) was being a little bit selfish and more than a little bit foolish (And who isn't guilty of that every now and then?) in his single-minded (if occasionally half-witted) pursuit of his ultimate goal: forging his son into the ultimate martial artist and a true man among men.

So no one could argue that Genma didn't love his son, albeit in his own myopic fashion, though he sure picked some decidedly odd ways of showing it sometimes. But not this time: Today, as they squared off to begin sparring, Genma kept himself focused on his current goal: ensuring that his son didn't get too close to Tendo's freakish two-headed daughter. He had to do anything necessary prevent this wedding. It was for the boy's own good.

(Trust me on this: when someone like Genma Saotome wants to do something 'for your own good', _run_. Good intentions _plus_ energetic stupidity can do so much damage that evil ain't even in the running.)

For his part, Ranma was suspicious this morning: why was the old man being so buddy-buddy all of a sudden? It just wasn't like him. They'd had a very close relationship when he was little, but as Ranma had gotten older Genma had come to prefer his 'noble, stoic sensei' act to more effusive shows of affection. Ranma preferred it too, since it spared him a lot of--in his opinion anyway--unnecessary mushy stuff. He felt a lot more comfortable when they were just beating on each other.

It would be far too easy to make too much out of Ranma's conflicts with his father, but that would obscure the central point of their relationship, the one essential point that Genma's harshest critics invariably missed: For all of their apparent differences, (hair for one) Ranma and his father did share one thing in common: a love of the art -- a love that Genma had somehow (against all odds) managed to instill in his son.

And that mutual love of the art (and, it must be admitted, a certain degree of sheer, bloody-minded stubbornness) was what got Ranma up every morning before dawn to participate in his father's sometimes brutal, often bizarre and frequently harebrained training routines. Ranma really, truly did want to be the best, if only to beat his father at his own game. If that meant putting up with his old man's idiotic schemes, then so be it.

As for their other conflicts, a large part of it could be pegged to simple disappointment. Six-year-old Ranma had idolized his father; nine-year-old Ranma had started to notice his flaws. At thirteen Ranma had come to suspect (strongly) that his father had feet of clay. By the time he was fifteen he wondered if there was enough clay in the whole universe to account for his father's shortcomings. It's always tough to come to grips with the realization that your father is faking it half the time, but we all do eventually. Ranma hadn't quite gotten there yet so a very strong streak of "How can you let me down like this when I love you" was still coloring their relationship.

Love, you say? Yes, love. Surprisingly enough, Ranma actually loved his dad, even though that only served to make him that much more irritating. Sure, Ranma thought his old man was an idiot, but show me a sixteen-year-old boy who _isn't_ convinced his old man is an idiot (though Ranma admittedly had more cause than most). Still, no one was forcing him to participate in his father's weird training regimens; given the state of his skills it was likely that nobody could. Ranma participated because he loved his art and he loved his dad, even though at this point in his life he'd rather have been boiled in oil than admit it.

So with all that said, on this morning Ranma thought he was prepared for anything his father might do, except for what actually happened: Genma… _talked _to him: a good, old-fashioned, heartfelt, father-to-son talk.

Somehow a beating would have almost been kinder.

o00o

It's amazing how quickly the bizarre can become routine, given enough repetition.

"Mr. Saotome…Ranma… Breakfast!"

"Thank you, dear Kasumi."

"HwaWaWaWa!" SPLOOSH!

For instance, Kasumi didn't even blink at the redheaded girl and panda climbing out of her koi pond. Though she did resolve to have a private word with both of them later -- koi were expensive.

"Oh, man." Ranma muttered as she emerged from the water, though "Oh, woman" might have been more appropriate. "Why'd 'ya hafta go and do that for, Pop?"

Her father shook like a dog, largely negating Ranma's futile attempts at wringing out the hem of her shirt, and produced another one of his idiot signs. Ranma didn't bother reading past _'A true martial artist…'_

"…'A true martial artist' can't go to school soaking wet, Pop. Or did you forget about that?" Giving up on her wringing, she yanked her shirt off over her head in order to do a more thorough job. "Man…"

"RANMA!" Akane's voice snapped behind her an instant before she felt the flat of the girl's hand strike the back of her head. "Don't you have _any_ feminine modesty?"

Ranma grimaced in frustration even as she turned to confront her accuser. The twins were fresh from the bath, and smelled like it: intriguing hints of soap, perfume, shampoo, and talcum powder...in short, all girl. Ranma wished desperately--and not for the first time--that her stupid subconscious would just shut the hell up and stop noticing things like that.

Nabiki, on the other hand (because she had to be, if Akane was… oh, never mind) felt that a more subtle disciplinary approach was called for. "Nice pair you got there, Saotome."

"You really think so?" Ranma responded automatically before she could catch herself. Then, flushing red with embarrassment, she turned back to Akane, hoping to cover her lapse with anger. "Why should _I _have feminine modesty? I'm not a girl."

"Could've fooled me, Saotome." Nabiki drawled, amused by his discomfort.

"He did fool you. And me. And Kuno too, for that matter." Akane smirked, catching on to Nabiki's game.

Ranma shuddered, too appalled by the very thought of Kuno to even consider a snappy comeback.

"Here you go, Ranma." Kasumi poured some warm water on him, effectively ending the argument.

"Thanks" Ranma muttered, sincerely grateful that it was Kasumi supplying the water and not her father. Unlike Mr. Tendo she never scalded him by heating it near to boiling.

Kasumi smiled. His manners were improving already. "You're welcome. Shall we eat?"

o00o

For once Ranma was happy that the canal fence was stout, because this morning his thoughts were elsewhere, even as he walked to school beside his conjoined fiancée.

_Stupid Pop. I shoulda known he was up to something._

Ranma didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. Pop had got him into this in the first place and now he was getting cold feet? _Pop doesn't want me to marry a freak?_ Well Duh. Unfortunately, much as he hated to admit it, his father's openly expressed revulsion was far too close to Ranma's own feelings on the matter for comfort.

Funny thing was, three days ago Ranma might have wholeheartedly agreed with him. Three weeks ago he _definitely_ would have agreed with him, because the word 'freak' didn't hit quite so close to home back then. But now that he'd gotten to know the twins a little better he'd been forced to admit that they weren't freaks: freaky, certainly, but not _freaks,_ if that made any sense. Heck, the freakiest thing about them was how _normal_ they acted. Though, to be fair, that was probably due to the relatively normal lives they'd led so far. _Hell, I bet **my** life was freakier then theirs even **before **Jusenkyo. It ain't fair. They're the freaks, not me; so why is **my** life more like a circus?_ It just didn't make _sense_. Worse, the better he got to know them, the less he understood.

For one thing, how the heck could two people who shared a common body possibly be so _different_ from each other? True, their faces were nearly perfect mirror images of each other, but once you looked past that -- and the fact that both of their heads sprang out of the same pair of shoulders -- the differences were what struck you the most. And it wasn't just that Nabiki was actually one centimeter taller, either. Heck, even their voices sounded totally different -- at least when they weren't speaking in that spooky unison, of course -- though that was more of a difference of inflection than anything else.

It was easy to see why Kuno picked Akane to get hung up on, because Akane was the perky, outgoing one. Unfortunately, she was also the hotheaded, angry one. Ranma couldn't even spell 'mercurial', but it would have been an understatement anyway. The girl cycled through her emotions so fast that it was hard to keep up. On the bright side, as easily as she got angry, she never stayed angry, and she seemed entirely incapable of holding a grudge. When she smiled, it was open, honest, and genuine, entire unshaded by any past (or future, unfortunately) resentment. And ironically enough, despite her tomboy ways, Akane had a pronounced preference for feminine clothing--the girlier, the better. Only her passion for sports and her sister's influence seemed sufficient to pry her out of her beloved tennis skirts and flouncy dresses.

Nabiki on the other hand, was more laid back. She tended to be laconic, analytical, and perfectly content to let her more outgoing sister do most of the talking. Left to her own devices, Nabiki contributed maybe one word in ten, but when she did speak she betrayed acute powers of observation. Interestingly, Nabiki was also the mischievous one, constantly teasing, and she always seemed to know exactly where to stick the needle. She also didn't seem to be the sort to forget a slight, either. Nabiki's smile was more calculating. And her fashion sense was very different, with her taste running more towards blouses, slacks, shorts, and overalls. Still feminine, but casual: kicking around clothes. Just how the two of them ever came to a mutual agreement on what to wear was still a mystery to him -- especially since they were so passionate about being seen as individuals, as their radically different haircuts clearly showed.

But that was just the most obvious outward sign. Their clothes were another. Kasumi spent a lot of time customizing them, particularly their bizarre, two-collared shirts. (Ranma _still_ hadn't figured out how they buttoned them.) Separate neck opening seemed to be very important to them, and Ranma couldn't help but notice that Kasumi even gave them different buttons and used subtly different detailing on the collars. Then there was their school jumper, with its seemingly redundant middle strap. At first he'd assumed that it was just there to help camouflage that third breast that they were so good at hiding (he still hadn't figured _that_ one out, either) but now he wasn't so sure: Now it seemed more like a statement of: "I'm here, she's there" then anything else, as if a strip of cloth barely 25 millimeters wide was all it took to confer individuality. About the only clothing they wore that didn't have separate collars was their favorite yellow gi, and that seemed to be as much a statement about their mutual devotion to martial arts as it was a nod to practicality since a two-collared gi seemed beyond even Kasumi's ingenuity. The same thing went for their bathrobe. Ranma still hadn't seen them in a bathing suit, and wasn't sure he wanted to. He was willing to be friends, but the thought of marrying either of them still creeped him out big-time.

"Earth to Ranma," Nabiki muttered. "Why are you so preoccupied this morning?"

Ranma winced. He really didn't want to talk about this with the girls. He briefly considered fobbing them off with some story, and just as quickly discarded the idea because he was a lousy liar and he knew it. He hopped down off the fence. "It's Pop."

"Let me guess: He's been ragging on you for turning into a girl again." Akane responded.

Ranma blinked, then took the escape route she'd offered him. "Well, yeah." It wasn't even a lie, really: Pop was always harassing him about that…just not this morning…much.

Nabiki cocked her head -- more than it was cocked already, anyway: the girls' diverging necks meant their heads were always cocked slightly, lending them an air of permanent bemusement -- "Ranma… that isn't anything you have any control over. So why do you let it bug you?"

Ranma squirmed. He feared for his manhood too much to be willing to admit that he feared for his manhood. Not yet, anyway. "'Cause I hate turning into a girl. It…it just ain't right."

Akane's lips flattened in annoyance. "What's so bad about being a girl? We're girls, aren't we? Half of the people in the world are girls, for Pete's sake."

Ranma colored. "It ain't that… it's um…" He faltered, struggling to find a way to express his feelings that wouldn't get him in any deeper.

"There's nothing wrong with being a girl if that's what you are, Akane." Nabiki responded quietly, unexpectedly bailing him out. "But Ranma isn't a girl. How would you like it if we were suddenly turned into boys?"

Akane shuddered. Boys were such perverts. Would turning into a boy make her a pervert too? "I don't even want to think about that."

_I don't wanna think about it, either_ Ranma thought quietly. _But it looks like I'm gonna have to._

o00o

Ranma's second experience with the pervert brigade was about as distressing as the first. His rather odd upbringing had left him quite naïve about some things, the teenage male libido being one of them. Unlike most boys his age, most of his excess energy had gone into exercise and martial arts. Unfocussed horniness was outside of his experience. And the thought that he himself might become a target of said horniness if his curse became generally known made him feel somewhat ill.

Fortunately, he didn't have much time to think about it because Kuno was on him almost immediately. Not wanting to get bucket duty on his second day of school too Ranma just dodged him by using his head for an impromptu handstand. The last thing he wanted was to be branded a troublemaker. In his experience, trouble would find him anyway, but he didn't want to be seen as the cause if he could avoid it. Besides, given his curse, buckets of water were just too dangerous, and it looked like it was about to rain any second. He bounded up the steps alongside the twins and made it inside just as the clouds broke and thoroughly soaked the assembled perverts and the befuddled Samarai wannabe, thankful for his close escape.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a day full of close escapes. Just because he didn't receive bucket duty didn't mean nobody else did, and his fellow students all seemed to develop a severe case of butterfingers this morning. Water came at him from all directions: Glasses were spilled. Soda cans sprayed when opened. Buckets were either dropped or tripped over. And always, always, the splash seemed to come directly at _him. _The water fountain breaking just as he happened to be walking past it was just about the last straw. All told, the day turned out to be a real ordeal for Ranma. Avoiding getting splashed took every last ounce of his skill. At least it was a Saturday. Saturday meant that he only had a half-day of school to deal with this. The second the bell rang he was out the door and gone, leaping straight over the wall to avoid the crowd at the gate.

"Hey Ranma! Wait up!" the twins called to him in surprise as they jogged along behind, but he was nowhere to be found. They finally caught up with him -- check that, they finally caught up with _her --_ about a block short of home. Ranma was shaking water out of her bangs and muttering dark imprecations about the sort of person who tossed mop water out of upper story windows as she adjusted the waistband of her trousers

"Jeez Ranma." Akane smirked as the came up to him. "I swear you're some kind of water magnet."

"Yeah, right. Laugh it up why don'cha." Ranma muttered disconsolately. "Stupid curse."

Akane and Nabiki blinked in unison. "You mean…" Akane queried.

…you really are a water magnet?" Nabiki finished, tapping her lips thoughtfully.

"Yeah, I think so." Ranma muttered dispiritedly. "Ever since I got cursed, anyway. I always seem to get splashed."

"Always?" Akane asked, drawn despite herself.

Ranma thought about that. "Nah, not always. Just when it's gonna be dangerous… or embarrassin'."

"Like just before you're due to meet your fiancée, perhaps?" Nabiki asked innocently. Akane scowled at the reminder.

"Yeah, Maybe." Ranma looked enlightened. _Maybe that's it._

"So today was…" Nabiki continued leadingly.

"Well, I ain't been splashed in a while. Maybe I'm just overdue." Ranma thought aloud.

"Hey, if that's all it is, how about if you just turn yourself into a girl every night before you go to bed?" Akane piped up unexpectedly.

Nabiki blinked. Akane had actually taken her by surprise for once. "Huh? Do you want to run that by us again, sis?"

Akane smiled sunnily, clearly impressed by her own brilliance. "Don't you get it? Maybe it's cumulative. The more time Ranma spends as a girl, the less chance there is he'll get splashed. And if he's asleep, being a girl won't bother him."

"Nuh-uh. No way." Ranma shuddered. _You mean sleep as a girl? Ugh._ "It don't work that way. I hadda spend almost a whole week as a girl right after I got cursed cause we were... um...camping out and I couldn't get hot water. I _still_ got splashed. A whole week. In the woods, no less. "

_What a baby_ Akane subvocalized to her twin, guessing the real reason for Ranma's discomfort. _So what if we can't write our names in the sand. It's not like it's an art! Boys may act tough, but they're just big sissies when it comes to the stuff we girls have to do every day._

Give him a break, Akane. Just imagine having to learn how girls pee in the woods at our age -- with only Uncle Saotome there to help, no less.

_Eeewwww. Forget I said anything. _

Privately, Nabiki wondered why Ranma had no access to hot water. Couldn't he have just built a fire? Aloud, she responded. "We don't know if it works that way, Akane. Magic doesn't have to make sense, you know."

Akane scuffed her foot, annoyed at having her bubble burst. "I'm only trying to help."

"Yeah, right…" Ranma started, only to bite off the rest of her snappish reply unspoken. _Y'know, I think she really is trying to help. Man. Half the time she's nice to me, and half the time I think she hates me. I don't think I'm ever going to figure her out._ "Um, I mean, yeah, thanks." She continued in a quieter voice.

Ranma breathed a sigh of relief when they re-entered the Tendo compound. It didn't matter if he got splashed here where no one could see him. That didn't save him from the unpleasant surprise that Kasumi had for him when he and the twins got home. 

"A challenge letter?" Ranma asked in surprise.

"From Kuno. To the 'tree-borne kettle girl', he said." Kasumi blinked. "I don't think he's quite figured out that you're the same person."

Ranma blinked too. Considering that he'd practically changed in Kuno's arms when they'd fallen into the pool he couldn't imagine why Kuno hadn't figured it out. But somehow he hadn't. Of course, Kuno had been stunned when they'd hit the water and must have missed seeing the actual change itself.

"Kuno-chan just hates to lose." Nabiki muttered

"Vengeful, hmmm?" Akane added.

"You do realize that you have to fight him as a girl, don't you?" Kasumi said thoughtfully, tapping her lips. Apparently it was a family gesture.

"Huh? Why?" Ranma, as ever a bit obtuse, asked in confusion.

"Because if you don't…" Akane began

"…you'll have to explain why the 'tree-borne kettle girl' didn't show up." Nabiki finished.

Ranma shuddered. _Great. Just Great._

"So it's a good thing you're a girl right now." Nabiki was continuing.

"Huh? Why?" Ranma asked, startled. The truth was he'd forgotten again. Now _that _was truly frightening

Akane and Nabiki shared one of their patented sidelong looks. "Because it won't do you any good to train for this fight as a boy now, would it?" They asked in unison, turning towards the dojo. "Come on."

"Urrggg." Ranma groaned, slapping her forehead. _I hate this._

Girl or not, Ranma trained hard -- almost too hard. Nabiki and Akane were a little puzzled by her vehemence. Perhaps they would have been more understanding if they'd known that this was the very first time she'd ever voluntarily trained as a girl.

Nabiki felt a little put out when Ranma didn't come see her that night, but she put it down to pre-fight jitters.

o00o

Nabiki and Akane looked up at the sound of the gate as Ranma slogged in quietly. The young martial artist was still in girl form, and appeared uninjured. At least, the twins couldn't see anything that would explain the thousand-meter stare in her blue eyes -- or the well-crumpled bouquet of roses in her hands.

"Ranma? Are you OK?" Nabiki asked her worriedly.

The petite redhead's eyes focused, and she looked at them. "I -uh…" she muttered. "uh…I…um?" She continued, gesturing vaguely with the hand that held the roses. The bouquet brushed against the gate, and she looked at the flowers curiously, as if she'd never seen them before. Then she seemed to snap back to reality. "It's nothing!" She said a bit too loudly, tossing the much-abused flowers over her shoulder against the wall.

Akane started giggling. "He made a pass at you, didn't he?"

Ranma blanched, then colored. "It's not funny, you stupid Tomboy!"

"Oh, my god...He _did_ make a pass at you." Nabiki chortled. This was just too much...Kuno had always been a bit oblivious, but this...

Ranma scowled angrily at the two of them briefly, then before he stalked past them, angered beyond words. _I gotta be a man again, Dammit. _But the girls laughter seemed to ring mockingly in his ears all the way to the bath.

And that was the last that any of the Tendos saw of him for a while. The twins went looking for Ranma later, but he was nowhere to be found for the rest of the day and he proved to be singularly uncommunicative at dinner, answering all queries with monosyllabic grunts. Then he disappeared like smoke virtually the instant dinner was over.

Kasumi blinked for a moment at the dust trail of his passage before she turned to her younger sisters. "Is... Ranma upset about something?"

The twins shared a guilty, sidelong glance. They knew full well what was bothering Ranma, but they both knew better than to mention it in front of Mr. Saotome.

o00o

The twins didn't talk about it until after they were in bed. They lay there in silence for a while, each doing her best to ignore the elephant in the corner.

"Akane… do you think we really hurt Ranma's feelings today?" Nabiki finally asked guiltily.

"Him? Naaahhhh." Akane countered dismissively, not wanting to think about it. "He'll get over it."

Nabiki pondered that for a moment. "Y'know, Akane... I think Ranma's really lonely."

Akane blinked, startled. "What makes you say that?"

"Something he said, that first night." Nabiki sighed. "Well, it wasn't what he said, so much as the way he said it."

"Really?" Akane asked, curious despite himself.

"Ever notice he never talks about himself?" Nabiki yawned. "He's never mentioned where he's from or where he went to middle school or even named a single friend. Doesn't that seem a little odd to you?"

"Maybe he just doesn't care. Who knows how boys think, anyway?" Akane shuddered slightly with distaste. _Why would anyone even **want** to know how boys thought?_ The very notion of understanding the morning pervert brigade, for example, made her feel vaguely slimy. "I don't think we'll ever understand boys, Sis. I don't think any girl ever really does."

"No, maybe not." Nabiki mumbled sleepily as she drifted off. "Wouldn't mind figuring one out, though. G'night…love…"

Akane stared at the ceiling for a long time after Nabiki's breathing became deep and regular.

o00o

Akane looked up in surprise as a familiar, tentative tapping came from their window. "Ranma?"

"Hey." The petite redhead muttered through her wet bangs.

Akane set her teeth, as always annoyed at the implications. _I'm not a lesbian! _Then guilt quickly set in. _I guess Ranma's **trying** to be nice, even though he isn't very good at it. He really must be lonely._ Aloud, she muttered. "I thought you wouldn't want to talk to me."

Ranma looled generally surprised. "Huh? Me? Why?"

"Because you got so mad when I teased you this afternoon." _You really **do** hate turning into a girl, don't you?_ _And I hate that, because it makes me feel inferior._

"Oh, that." Ranma replied with poorly feigned nonchalance. "Well, who else am I gonna talk to? After all, we're still on the same side, ain't we?"

Akane swallowed. It was true. They were on the same side. Which meant she wasn't on Nabiki's side. Which was impossible, because she was always on Nabiki's side: she was on Nabiki's side by definition...except now, apparently. She swallowed again, trying to quell the sudden ache in her throat. _Relax. It's for her own good, remember?_ But Ranma seemed to require some kind of answer. "We're not ready to get married."

"That's for sure. Fiancée. Hell, I ain't even been on a real date yet." Ranma muttered, looking at her hands. Then her head shot up as she realized that she'd said too much. "Er, I... I mean..."

"Me neither." Akane muttered disconsolately, not really paying much attention to him. _And I probably never will, either._

"Well, I expected _that_." Ranma responded, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Akane's internal conflict suddenly found an external focus. "Because we're freaks, right?" She growled, her fist clenching.

"Huh?" Ranma looked up and recoiled, belated recognizing her danger. But Akane wasn't in any position to actually hit him, and in any case she looked more hurt than angry. Then, to his horror, her face crumpled and she burst into tears. "Akane, I..."

"Leave me alone." Akane gasped, pulling a pillow over her head and wishing she could roll over.

"But..."

"Go away, Ranma! Just go away!"

Ranma tried to swallow the lump in her throat as she listened to the other girl sob. Finally, she could stand it no longer. "I... I'm sorry." she muttered at last as she slipped away from the window.

Akane paid no attention as she sobbed. _Why does this have to be so hard? _

o00o

Monday morning, both Ranma and Nabiki woke up screaming. Given the events of Ranma's first morning at the Tendo home, the commotion that ensued before the cause was determined to be coincidental nightmares is best left to the imagination, though Ranma tended to flinch reflexively whenever Kasumi looked at him for the next two days.

All of which meant that nobody took much notice when Ranma proved to be uncharacteristically sullen and uncommunicative during breakfast: they all just assumed that he was angry over being unfairly accused of something he didn't do. And they might have been right, too, if Ranma hadn't had something much worse to occupy his mind: Kuno.

For the erstwhile 'Blue Thunder' had been a major feature of his dream, along with a hot spring and a body that had remained resolutely female despite said hot spring. All of which had disturbed him mightily.

Ranma didn't even bother with the fence that morning. Instead, he sulked along the ground, hands jammed in his pockets and kicking at the occasional pebble. _Man, I hafta stop thinking about this before I go crazy!_

Fortunately, the girls provided him with a distraction. They were blinking and twitching again, deep in a conversation that only they could hear, though he strongly suspected that he was the subject. It had freaked him out a little at first, but he'd soon realized that there was nothing spooky about it: They were merely speaking so softly that no one outside their conjoined body could hear it. But the very thought that they could be talking behind his back-- right in front of his face, no less! -- really, really annoyed him. Finally, he could stand it no longer.

"Somethin' you two wanna share?" he grumbled querulously.

Akane blinked, coming out of her seeming trance. "It's a girl thing, Ranma."

"Maybe we should include you Ranma," Nabiki smirked. "After all, you're half-girl aren't you?"

"I'm a guy." Ranma protested automatically.

"Oh, really?" Nabiki grinned wickedly, lifting the sports bottle she was carrying suggestively.

"Leave him alone, Nabiki." Akane said unexpectedly.

"Huh?" Ranma and Nabiki responded simultaneously, both amazed that Akane would come to his defense.

Akane was looking the other way, and her ears were very red. "Just drop it, all right?"

Nabiki turned back to Ranma and gave him one of her bizarre looking one-sided shrugs, as if to say _Hey, I don't understand her either._

Ranma blinked in puzzlement -- the twin's movements were getting jerky again. They walked on in silence for a moment. "Honestly, Nabiki." Akane growled after a moment. "Don't you have any shame at all?"

"What?" Nabiki asked, clearly puzzled.

"We'd barely met Ranma and you… you used the c-c-c w-w-word." Akane complained, flushing heavily and stuttering from embarrassment. She swallowed, clearly unwilling to elaborate further but too angry to keep silent. "Some things are just t-t-t-too personal to talk about." She spat finally.

Nabiki rolled her eyes. "Don't be such a prude, sis." She huffed back at her twin.

Ranma looked on in slack-jawed amazement as the twin's movements became so disjointed that they were barely making any forward progress at all. Compared to this their argument after the bath incident barely qualified as a debate. An older, wiser man might have known enough to keep his mouth shut, but Ranma was still very much on the steep part of the learning curve when it came to girls. "What's the c-word?"

That brought the two of them up short. Suddenly, Nabiki was blushing just as fiercely as her sister. "Never you mind, Ranma."

Fortunately for all of them, they arrived at the gate and its waiting crowd of boys and the twins abandoned their argument to face the common threat. Their body language re-synchronized so quickly that Ranma could have sworn he'd heard an audible _snap_. Ranma almost winced at the grim set of their expressions: Some poor suckers were going to get an extra beating today. Hopefully the girls would feel better after they'd had a chance to work out their frustrations a little.

_Hey, that's not such a bad idea… _Ranma cracked his knuckles as he eyed the pervert brigade ahead of them, last night's dream still fresh on his mind. Nabiki and Akane weren't the only ones with frustrations to work out this morning.

o00o

The twins were quite surprised when Ranma charged right into the waiting crowd of perverts alongside them. With Ranma's unexpected aid they plowed through the hentai horde without even breaking step, moving so fast that they came upon Kuno before he was ready for them. Ranma and Nabiki planted simultaneous kicks on his chin before he even got the first word of his speech out.

"Hey, don't interfere in our fight!" Akane objected automatically.

"Shaddup!" Ranma growled back with a shiver of disgust. _Perverted bastard._

Nabiki blinked, a little surprised by his vehemence. The twins would have exchanged a significant look had they been physically capable of doing so. Fortunately, their intrinsic sister-sense made such overt gestures unnecessary.

By now school had fallen into a sort of a routine: Show up late, clobber perverts, beat up Kuno, buckets. Or, if they were lucky, show up on time, clobber perverts, beat up Kuno, no buckets. Only today, during lunch period, there was a difference: Kasumi flashed the twins a smile as she stuck her head into their classroom during the afternoon break. "Ranma? Tatewaki-kun would like to have a word with you." She looked back at her sisters. "Alone."

Akane and Nabiki exchanged one of their patented sidelong glances. Nothing good could come of this. Nabiki dropped her chopsticks.

"C'mon, Akane. I want to see what's going on."

Akane raised another bite to her mouth. "Ranma can take care of himself."

"Akane, Kuno's crazy. What if he's finally gotten his hands on a real sword?" Nabiki hissed, a little desperately

"Kasumi said alone. If we try to follow, they'll spot us for sure." Akane objected

"We'll just follow from a discreet distance and they'll never notice." Nabiki asserted, trying to push her half of their body away from the table.

"Sure, we'll just blend in with all of the other two-headed girls in the crowd." Akane complained, tossing her chopsticks down as she gave in.

Unfortunately, by that time the trail had gone quite cold, and their quick search of the corridors came to an abrupt ending in a first-floor restroom.

"Dammit," Nabiki muttered as she tapped her foot impatiently. "The heroine never stops to pee in the movies."

"Fine." Akane huffed in exasperation. "You figure out a way to make sure it will only run down _your_ leg, and I'll happily run around with you until we pop." She scowled at their dim reflection in the stall door, a little miffed by her twin's apparent concern for her fiancé. _I can't be…jealous…can I? Impossible._ "Relax, Sis. He'll be fine. He beat Kuno the last two times he faced him."

"But what if Kuno was holding back because Ranma was a girl …" Nabiki began, only to be cut off by Akane suddenly clapping her hand over her mouth. Nabiki was about to object when she clearly heard Ranma's annoyed voice drifting in through the open window.

"…don't worry, you'll never see _her_ again…"

Nabiki and Akane paused briefly to share one of their patented sidelong glances before they hopped up and started frantically restoring their clothing.

o00o

Ranma growled. He'd had just about as much of this Kuno jerk as he could take. He'd tried, he'd honestly tried, to explain his curse to the idiot, but it hadn't worked. Time to show the pretentious samurai wannabe just what masubetsu kakuto could do. He ducked under Kuno's next wild blow, catching the boken on the backswing and vaulting over it to plant a double-footed kick to his opponent's sternum. "And if I beat you, you'll forget about her, right?" He shouted before he noticed something fluttering up into the air from the gap in Kuno's gi-style top, apparently dislodged by the force of his blow. Curious, he couldn't help snagging it between two fingers…

It was a photograph... of his female form... topless.

o00o

By the time the twins got outside, Ranma's conversation with Kuno had apparently dissolved into a melee. Ranma was wet, but male. From the water on the ground and the kettle in Kasumi's hands, it was fairly easy to decipher what had happened: Kuno had apparently found out about Ranma's secret, and wasn't particularly happy about it. He was making his displeasure known with vicious sweeps of his boken. Off to the side Kasumi was glowering at the battle but, as is often the case, Kasumi's once much-feared displeasure had lost most of its deterrent effect once it had finally been revealed.

From here it was hard to see what was happening, but it didn't look good. Ranma had his back to them, but wary of the reach of Kuno's weapon they didn't dare get closer or maneuver for a better position. They instinctively took cover next to a statue in case the battle moved their way. At first it seemed like Ranma had the upper hand, and Akane and Nabiki tensed happily as Ranma got in a really good kick, only to clap their hands over their mouths in horror a moment later as he seemed to lose concentration and took a hard shot in the ribs. Wobbling for just a moment, Ranma shifted to ducking and dodging as Kuno renewed his assault, but his mind seemed elsewhere, and he made no move to press his earlier advantage.

"What's the matter with him?" Akane growled. "Kuno'll kill him if he doesn't wise up."

Nabiki didn't respond, even though she wanted to strangle her fiancé for screwing around like this in a potentially deadly situation.

Kuno's opinion seemed to mirror Nabiki's, and he said as much, shouting an enraged "Fool, you look elsewhere in the midst of battle!" even as he lunged forward at full extension, a vicious strike that Ranma only barely avoided by throwing himself into a backwards summersault.

Ranma rolled to a stop at someone's feet. Specifically, a girl's feet, still clad in her _ubwaki_ indoor shoes. Whoever it was had been in a really big rush to get outside. After what seemed like long moment, he looked up. Akane and Nabiki were glaring back down at him, hands on their hips, apparently annoyed at his antics.

"I suppose we should tell you…" Nabiki growled

"…when upper-classman Kuno fights a man, he is very skilled." Akane glared.

"Um, yeah, thanks." Ranma blinked back at their upside-down faces, before some perverse impulse caused him look at Nabiki. "Akane picked out your clothes this morning, didn't she?"

"Um…Yeah. How'd you know?" Naibiki blinked, puzzled.

Ranma smirked. "I didn't think polka-dots were your style."

_Polka-dots?_ The conjoined girls briefly tilted their heads in confusion before they suddenly realized that Ranma's inverted position gave him a perfect view up their skirt, and they turned red as beets.

"Go back and die!" Akane yelled as they booted him back into the fray.

The twin girls stood there watching him sail back towards Kuno. "Akane?" Nabiki asked after a long moment.

"Yeah sis?"

"The polka-dotted panties go."

Akane wilted a little. But they were so cute! She would have protested, but her sister-sense was warning her that Nabiki would brook no disagreement this time. "Yes, sis."

Then their attention was wrenched back to the fight. Kuno smirked upward at the approaching martial artist, judging his trajectory. "Now it ends!" he shouted, and released a flurry of strikes faster than the untrained eye could follow. "Dadadadadadadada…"

"Yow!" Ranma shouted, caught off guard. He couldn't help but be distracted as the statue the girls were hiding behind began to crumble from the sheer air pressure of the blows. "Get away, you idiots!" he yelled at them as he threw himself backward to avoid the deadly wooden sword.

"Look out!" screamed Nabiki as Kuno raised his boken overhead for the final blow.

"Eyes front, stupid!' yelled Akane

Ranma returned his attention to his opponent as he expertly converted his fall into a single-handed handspring, seemingly giving Kuno a casual wave with his foot as it arced past. Kuno muttered "heh" in apparent contempt as Ranma landed lightly on his feet, smirking arrogantly at the twins. The girls were drawing breath to scream at him for turning his back on his opponent _again _when Kuno suddenly collapsed.

The conjoined girls slowly approached the unconscious kendoist and carefully rolled him over onto his back. Incredibly, the front of his body was covered in dirty footprints. "You kicked him?…" Akane asked, incredulous.

"…I never even saw it." Nabiki whispered in stunned amazement, even though she could see clear evidence of at least seven strikes to vital areas. She'd always considered herself and Akane to be top-notch martial artists, but Ranma, it seemed, was in another league entirely.

"So that's the mighty Blue Thunder, huh?" Ranma smirked arrogantly as he worked the kinks out of his neck. "Didn't have much, did he?"

"What do you mean? You took a hit, didn't you?" Akane asked, poking him in the side where Kuno's bokken had impacted.

Blinding pain, no longer masked by adrenaline, caused him to drop to his knees. "Owww!"

The girls were leaning over him when he could see again. "Ranma?" Nabiki asked, curious. "What distracted you during the fight?"

Wordlessly, Ranma straightened and handed her one of the photographs he'd collected. Nabiki took one look at it and gave a strangled gasp. Ranma looked on in astonishment as the conjoined girls fell to their knees just as he had, hugging themselves tightly. Nabiki's chin dropped to their chest, as-yet unshed tears standing in her eyes.

Curious, Ranma picked up the fallen photograph. It appeared to be innocent enough: an innocuous snapshot of Akane and Nabiki in their favorite yellow gi, though something didn't seem quite right about it. Then he did a double-take and looked closer. It was picture of Akane…and _only_ Akane. Somehow Nabiki's head had been erased and their extra-wide shoulders reduced to a more normal width. The picture showed Akane as she probably would have looked if she hadn't been conjoined. _She looks really cute like that_ he couldn't help thinking guiltily.

"It's all right, Sis." Akane was murmuring in Nabiki's ear, even as she tried to rub her twin's shoulder comfortingly. Nabiki sniffed loudly, shaking her head, though she wasn't quite crying…yet.

"That's easy for you to say." Nabiki wailed "You aren't the one he wants to _erase!_"

Kasumi plucked the photo from Ranma's unresisting hand and frowned at it. "How awful." She scowled at Ranma. Somehow, gentle Kasumi scowling seemed way more scary than a dozen sword wielding Kunos. "Where did you get this?"

Ranma gestured vaguely with the hand holding the other photographs. "Kuno had them."

Kasumi frowned at the unconscious kendoist. "Did he now..." She held out her hand for the remaining photos and Ranma handed the stack over automatically without even thinking about it. Kasumi flipped through them quickly -- from what Ranma could see they mostly seemed to be similarly modified pictures of Akane -- until she came to one in particular and froze. Her gaze slowly rose to meet his, and Ranma froze too. Was that…pity… in her gaze?

"Oh, Ranma." She murmured. "I'm so sorry."

"What?" Akane asked sharply from her position by Kasumi's knee. Even Nabiki seemed distracted from her anguish. Kasumi wordlessly handed them the photograph before the mortified boy could move to take it back.

"Oh." The twins shared a sidelong, discomfited glance. Then they gave him the same sort of pitying look he'd just got from Kasumi. "Maybe you should develop a sense of feminine modesty after all, Ranma." Nabiki muttered after a long moment.

That broke the spell. Ranma was not going to accept pity, from them or anyone else. Moving faster than they could see, he snatched the photograph back and jammed it deep into his pocket. "It don't mean nothin'" he growled, pivoting on his heel. "It don't mean nothin'!" he repeated, a little more forcefully.

"But…" Kasumi objected faintly, a little puzzled by his reaction. "How can you even say that?"

"Cause it don't." Ranma responded gruffly, wincing in pain as he shouldered his schoolbag. "Cause that ain't really me."

The three girls shared a look. Finally, Nabiki broke the silence.

"Come on, Ranma…."

"…I think we should go have Doctor Tofu check out your ribs." Akane finished as they got to their feet.

"I'm fine, I tell ya." Ranma grumbled, windmilling his elbow to show that it didn't really hurt any more, though the effect was totally ruined by his pained grimace.

"Don't argue, Baka." Nabiki chided him gently, grabbing his free hand as Akane assured Kasumi that they'd be home for dinner.

Ranma muttered one more "don't mean nothin'" as they pulled him through the gate. Kasumi watched them leave in silence. Ranma seemed quite intent on making that point, but who was he really trying to convince?

o00o

Doctor Tofu seemed a little surprised to see them back so soon after yesterday. "Akane, Nabiki." He greeted the twins cheerily. "I haven't seen this much of you two in quite a while. Is your back bothering you again?"

The twins blushed and looked down. "It's fine, Doctor." Nabiki muttered, blushing.

"Yeah, I mean..." Akane took up the conversation "we haven't really done anything that would..."

_Interesting_ Ranma thought, distracted from his pain for a moment. _What's with the sweet, innocent bit?_

Finally the genial chiropractor ended his gentle interrogation of the blushing twins and looked their companion over curiously. "Have... have I met you?"

_Of course you did, you idiot _Ranma thought, and opened his mouth to say so. "Of course you... Owww!"

"Of course not, Tofu-sensei" Nabiki chirped a bit too brightly, hastily retracting finger she'd just jabbed into Ranma's injured side. "Though um, I... um, I..."

"...I think you might have, um, met his sister yesterday!" Akane interjected, obviously sounding as if she'd just thought of it.

"Huh?" Ranma blinked "What the heck are you two..." _talking about, _he might have said if Nabiki hadn't threatened to poke him again. Then it finally dawned on him: _Shoot, they're right! I **was** a girl when I met Dr. Tofu yesterday._ "Uh, right. Uh..." Ranma blinked, trying to remember if he'd given Dr. Tofu his name yesterday morning. "Er, um..." he bowed hastily. "P-p-pleased to meet you Tofu-sensei, I'm Ranma... Ranma Saotome."

"Er... right." Doctor Tofu returned the bow cautiously, eyeing the three of them suspiciously. The girls promptly adopted exaggerated expressions of innocence. Akane even looked like she was about to start whistling, "I must say, the resemblance is quite remarkable."

"That's because they're twins!" Akane piped up

"Yeah, right." Nabiki nodded hastily, following her lead. "They're... identical twins." Ranma winced, wishing they'd just shut up and let it go already.

The Doctor raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Another set of twins, huh?" He looked Ranma over carefully, then turned back to the girls. "There's just one problem with _that_." The Doctor went on, looking over his glasses at them. "If they were identical, Ranma here would be a girl too. And Ranma here obviously _isn't_ a girl, now is he?"

"Not now, no." Akane admitted before Nabiki could shush her.

"O-kay..." the Doctor responded after a long moment of silence. "Now just what seems to be your problem, Saotome-kun?"

Fortunately, the young Doctor chose to drop this line of questioning and they managed to make it through the rest of the visit without any more embarrassing or awkward moments. Dr. Tofu was quickly able to determine that no ribs were broken, and he quickly sent them on their way after some quick jabs to a couple of Ranma's shiatsu points, declaring that a hot soak, a little ice and aspirin would soon have the young martial artist feeling just as good as new.

Ranma was thoughtful as they headed back to the Dojo. "You two really like Dr, Tofu, don't you?" He asked after a while.

"Yeah." the two girls sighed in unison. Then Akane pouted. "But we're still just a couple of little girls as far as he's concerned."

Ranma took one look at their wistful expression and filed some thoughts away for future consideration. "Why was he asking about your back?"

"None of your..." Nabiki huffed, the mood clearly broken

...business." Akane growled.

"Jeeze, excuse me for caring." Ranma puffed back.

"Oh, all right!" Nabiki snapped ""The human pelvis wasn't designed for two spines, OK?"

"Oh." Ranma responded, a bit startled by her frankness. "I can see that."

"Yeah, right." they groused in unison. Then Nabiki looked over at him curiously. "Can you really?"

Ranma shrugged. "You sure don't move like nobody else."

The conjoined girls stopped in their tracks and turned to stare at him, obviously unsure just how to take that. "What's that supposed to mean?" Akane asked, finally.

"It's not supposed to mean anything," Ranma shrugged, puzzled. "It's the truth."

The three of them just stood there regarding each other for a long moment. Finally, Ranma cleared his throat. "Um... thanks, you two."

"What for?" The responded in unison, raising mirror-imaged eyebrows,

"For coverin' for me back there. Or tryin' to, anyway."

The two girls exchanged one of their sidelong looks, and assumed lopsided grins before they turned and resumed walking. Then Akane snorted. "Don't mention it, Ranma, after all...

"...we wouldn't want Dr, Tofu to think we're weird... now would we?" Nabiki finished for her, her eyes dancing.

o00o

Ranma actually ate dinner at a civilized pace that evening, looking for all the world like a young man with a quite a lot on his mind. Since he didn't exactly know what to do with it there, he excused himself as soon as possible afterwards and headed straight out to the Dojo and didn't stop training until he'd driven all of the thoughts out of his mind, good or bad, until the only thing left in his awareness was the speed and flow of his body as he drove himself through kata after kata, drill after drill.

Finished with his exertions at last, Ranma left the dojo and went to the garden pump, intent on rinsing off the sweat. He threw his shirt over the rail, filled a bucket, and dumped it over his head -- only to realize his error the instant the tingle of the change washed over him. Moving with all of the speed he could muster Ranma snatched the shirt off of the washstand and clutched it over his… no, _her_ breasts before he vaulted up back into the dojo and yanked the shoji closed with a moan of anguish. He crouched there for a long moment, pressing the wadded tang to his chest as he tried to get his breathing back under control. Then he quickly thrust his hands through the sleeves and yanked the shirt over his head before he buried his head in his knees.

Except it wasn't'his' headat the momentOr 'his' knees. Or even 'his' chest for that matter._ Man I hate this… _he thought, quailing a little at the still unaccustomed sensations of his breasts pressing into his thighs. _Why did this have to happen to me?_ Maybe she was overreacting -- surely it was too dark for photography out there now -- but that didn't matter. What mattered was that he could never, ever take something as simple as taking his shirt off in public for granted again, because 'bare-chested' could suddenly become 'topless' with a little splash of water. Even if he didn't really care if anyone ogled 'her' body, suddenly and visibly growing boobs would make it totally impossible for him to even _try_ to conceal his curse. Apparently, he actually was going to have to develop some form of "feminine modesty" like it or not.

Great. I've got to be the only friggin' boy in the whole friggin' world for whom the word 'topless' has any real meaning.

Stupid Kuno. This was the second time he'd made Ranma feel violated in a way that could only happen to a _girl_. Ranma felt a sudden impulse to massage the breast that Kuno had so viciously squeezed and ruthlessly quashed it. _I am not a girl no matter what my body looks like._

After a while though his hand slowly moved, seemingly of it's own accord, to gently probe the gland in question, _…Yeah, but can I honestly say that I'm not a girl no matter what my body **feels** like?_

_Dammit, why **me**?_

Signing, Ranma pulled out the crumpled photograph. Ironically enough, it wasn't even all that explicit, just a three-quarter shot of a pretty young woman removing her shirt to bathe at a garden pump, revealing nothing more than one breast in profile with just a hint of the nipple. It wasn't anything worse than a calendar-girl pose, really: a picture that promised a lot more than it actually delivered. In fact, it was less revealing than a lot of stuff you saw on television these days. If it had been any other girl, Ranma would have said she looked hot.

But it isn't any other girl. It's me, dammit. Actually, this was the first time that Ranma had ever seen a photograph of his female form, and he had to admit that 'she' did look hot. In fact, looking at it, Ranma couldn't help but feel a little aroused, a feeling that died instantly when his new "equipment" started reporting back in unaccustomed ways.

Maybe Akane's right: Maybe I am a pervert. Then he discarded that though with a snap of his head. I ain't no pervert. A pervert would be enjoyin' this.

o00o

Above him in their bedroom, Akane and Nabiki were having problems of their own. Somehow, their usual automatic coordination was a little more difficult tonight. They sat at their vanity table for a long time, ostensibly brushing Akane's hair, but Nabiki seemed distant, preoccupied. Finally Akane could bear it no longer. "What's wrong, Sis?"

"We'll never be in Ranma's league, Akane." Nabiki sighed quietly. "No matter how much we practice."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Akane responded querulously

"Akane, didn't you count the footprints? Ranma kicked Kuno at least _seven_ times! Seven times, so fast that we couldn't even see it." Nabiki sighed. "We'll _never_ be that fast. It's impossible."

Akane looked into the mirror stolidly, still brushing. "Nothing's impossible, Nabiki. What makes you say that?"

"We have to coordinate with each other, and Ranma's just… coordinated"

Akane found herself getting extremely angry. While that in itself was nothing new, the target for her anger was. "Oh no. No way! I'm not going to give up our dream just so you can play damsel in distress for your new boyfriend!"

Nabiki couldn't help responding in kind. "He's not my boyfriend, he's my fiancé!"

"Same difference!"

Nabiki stared at her sister's set expression in the mirror for a long moment -- she'd never seen her directly, only in the mirror -- and then her eyes flashed angrily. "Fine. Be that way. Just don't talk to me."

"What?" Akane asked, startled right out her anger.

"I said don't talk to me! I don't want to hear it!"

"O...okay." Akane whispered, shocked. The two of them averted their gaze from the mirror, neither daring to look at the other for the moment. Then they got to their feet and clambered into bed unsteadily, their usual seamless coordination noticeably absent.

Nabiki tried to swallow the lump in her throat as she stared at the ceiling. She as much felt as heard the tiny sniff from the right side of the bed. She heaved a sigh, feeling near tears herself. "This is what you were afraid of, isn't it?"

There was a pregnant pause as Akane held their breaths. "Uh-huh." she whispered at last.

Nabiki thought about that for a while, then heaved a sigh for both of them. Then she threw her arm over their chest and squeezed, giving her sister what passed for a kiss between them, turning her head as far as she could until her lips just barely grazed Akane's cheek. _Funny... we're probably the two closest people on earth but there are some ways we can't get close at all. I wonder why I've never thought of that before? _"We're going to get through this, Akane, I just know we will," she whispered, "the same way we get through everything: together."

Akane silently returned the hug, wishing she could share her sister's confidence.

o00o

Nabiki looked up at the tentative knock on their bedroom door. "It's open."

Ranma poked his head in cautiously. "You wanna to talk to me?"

"Of course I do." Nabiki smiled, patting the bed in invitation. "How's it going? Feeling any better about the Kuno thing?"

"Huh?" He couldn't help responding, startled. It was that or panic. "About what?" _How much does she know?_

Nabiki squinted at him curiously. "You know -- your side?

_Oh, yeah, right: the bokken hit._ He took a deep breath, and tried to relax. "Oh, that. I'm still kinda sore, but I'm gettin' better. I've taken worse hits than that." _I gotta play this cool and just hope she's convinced enough to let this line of questioning drop_ he thought, trying to feign a nonchalance that he certainly didn't feel. Hopefully he sounded a lot more convincing to her than it did to himself.

Nabiki just looked at him for a long moment. Then she unexpectedly changed tacks. "So... what was your nightmare about this morning?"

_Oh shit. _Different tack or not, Nabiki was still sailing too close for comfort. He decided to play dumb -- it always seemed to work for his old man. "Who me? A nightmare?"

Nabiki rolled her eyes expressively. "Come off it, Ranma. Everyone has nightmares. I had one too, remember? Or do you mean to tell me that you wake up screaming every morning?" Nabiki smiled gently into his sheepishness. "Come on. You tell me about your nightmare, and I'll tell you about mine, OK?"

Ranma looked stubbornly off into space. For a moment Nabiki was sure he'd just leave. Finally he looked down at his hands. "It seems kinda silly now. I...I dreamed I was sitting in a hot spring, as...as a girl."

Nabiki looked puzzled. "So what's so bad about that?"

Ranma looked up at her. "There was a boy." He said simply.

"Oh." That gave Nabiki pause. "Oh..." she repeated wonderingly, as enlightenment dawned. "Oh Ranma, that's awful."

"Yeah." Ranma nodded, secretly pleased that she'd understood without his having to spell it out. "What about yours?"

"What about my what?"

"What about your nightmare? You said you'd tell me about it too."

"Oh, that." Nabiki gave him a wry look. "Well, it was one I have a lot, actually: I dreamed I woke up alone."

"That's it?" Ranma asked, puzzled. What could be so frightening about that?

"Alone." Nabiki elaborated carefully. "You know...with half of my body missing?"

Unbidden, Ranma's gaze shifted from Nabiki to Akane's sleeping face. _She looks so cute like that..._then he mentally kicked himself for noticing. "You two really don't _want_ to be separated, do you?" he whispered softly, as it really, really struck home for the first time.

"Of course not, Ranma. Now do you get it? We can't be cured--we're not sick! We don't want to be 'fixed' because we're not broken! We don't ever want to be separated, because there is nothing wrong with us!" Nabiki looked away, a lone tear streaking down her cheek. "There's just always been something wrong with other people."

Ranma gulped. As epiphanies go, this was a particularly hard one to swallow. They actually _wanted_ to be freaks? Still, he couldn't help respond to the raw hurt in the conjoined girl's voice. "Nabiki?"

She looked up warily, clearly tensing herself for his response

Ranma took a deep breath. "If it helps..." he hesitated, surprised to find himself smiling. "I...I can't imagine you two any other way."

Nabiki smiled back at him, visibly relaxing. "Thanks, Ranma. It does help... a lot."

They sat in companionable silence for a while. Unfortunately, silence wasn't something he was good at. Besides, there was something that he was just dying to know. "Nabiki... can you, um... please tell me what got up Akane's ass this afternoon?"

Nabiki snorted. "You mean _our_ ass, Saotome. We have to share one, remember?" Ranma flinched, and she unbent a little. "But that's… kind of the point, actually."

"I don't get it."

"Ranma, it wasn't girl talk. I mean, it was, but it wasn't _just_ girl talk, OK?" She looked at him. He still didn't get it. _Sigh_. "Ranma, there's girl stuff, and then there's _girl stuff. _The kind of girl stuff that girls _really_ don't like to talk about, even with other girls. Well, Akane and I _have_ to talk about it. Because of… because of our common anatomy."

"Oh." Ranma swallowed. That certainly made sense, and he decided that he definitely didn't want to pursue this any further. Except for one little thing that kept nagging him. "Ummm, Nabiki?"

"Yeah?"

"Just what _is_ the c-word, anyway?"

Nabiki colored. "Oh jeez, Ranma." _Just how naïve are you? _After a moment she sighed. "Come off it, Ranma, think! It's a slang word for a certain part of the female anatomy." Nabiki looked up and saw no visible understanding in his eyes. She sighed again at his apparent cluelessness. "You know...the part that makes us girls?"

"Oh." Ranma muttered, enlightenment dawning at last. "_That_ c-word."

Nabiki flushed. "Yeah, _that _c-word. I only said it because I knew it would really jerk Akane's chain. I just hate it when she gets all prissy like that. But I never should have used _that_ word."

"Why?"

"It's not just a dirty word, it's an ugly, hateful degrading word. Worse, it's a _man's_ word. Men use it when they're talking about us. We don't use it to talk about ourselves." She examined him carefully. "You really don't know any of this, do you?"

Ranma flushed angrily. "Why should I know? I ain't no girl."

_Not right at the moment, no,_ Nabiki thought, though she didn't say it. "But you must have spent _some_ time with girls, haven't you?"

Ranma tensed. Then he relaxed, and shrugged. "I mostly went to boy's schools and studied martial arts at monasteries. You don't get to meet many girls that way."

"What about your mom?"

That brought him up short. "I… I don't really remember my mom. It's just been me and Pops for as long as I can remember."

"I'm sorry."

"No reason you should be. You don't have a mom either, do you?"

"No, but at least I can remember her." Nabiki sighed, her eyes going vacant in reminiscence. This time Ranma kept his mouth shut. After a while she focused on him again. "So... how are things going between you and Akane?"

Ranma winced, reminded that he'd left her in tears last night. "Umm... not so hot, I'm afraid."

"I was afraid of that." Ranma twitched as Nabiki grabbed his hand. "Just don't quit, Okay?"

"Quit? me?" Ranma responded as if he hadn't been thinking of doing exactly that. "Feh" he huffed. "I don't even know the meaning of the word 'quit'".

"Good. I'm glad." Nabiki smiled. "I want us to all be friends even if this fiancé thing doesn't work out." Then she looked serious. "Just keep trying, okay? I'm sure Akane will come around to our side eventually."

"Er...okay." Ranma agreed reluctantly, aware that he'd just committed himself to another indefinite round of these little nightly chats. "Er... I probably oughta let you get some sleep. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Ranma." Nabiki responded quietly, letting go of his hand to adjust her covers "Oh, and Ranma?"

He turned back at the door. "Yeah?"

Nabiki smiled. "I'm really glad you're on my side."

Ranma gulped guiltily. "Er... yeah. 'night."

"'night."

Nabiki smiled softly as she quickly joined her conjoined sister in slumber, lulled by as always by the gentle rhythm of their permanently synchronized breathing. Kasumi glanced in on them on her own way to bed and smiled: sleep had once again lent her conjoined sisters the innocence of childhood, if only until tomorrow.

o00o

Midnight, and the waxing moon once again smiled gently down upon the Tendo Dojo, illuminating the lone holdout remaining from the gently snoring household as he hugged his knees on roofing tiles long since cooled from the afternoon's sun.

_Oh man, how do I get myself into these things? _Ranma thought guiltily._ Now Nabiki thinks I'm on **her** side... and Akane already thinks I'm on **her** side. How the heck can two people who share the same body be on different sides? And why isn't anybody on **my** side, for cripes sakes? I mean, I think I like 'em both, kinda. Nabiki anyway. I still don't want to marry them, but I don't want to hurt 'em either. _

Ranma spent a long time staring into the vastness of space as he waited for his inner turmoil to subside, wondering what he should do. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the stars kept their own counsel as always.

_So... just whose side am I on anyway? _

o00o

Somehow things always seem just a little bit brighter in the morning.

Ranma was grinning like a madman as he delivered his finishing move, a roundhouse kick that sent his old man spiraling towards another watery flirtation with panda-hood. Maybe it was the beautiful sunrise just peeking over the horizon. Maybe it was because Ranma's sleep -- once he'd finally gotten to sleep, anyway -- had been blissfully undisturbed by either nightmares or idiots for a change. Maybe it was because he'd just nailed Pop a good one while managing to stay out of the splash radius himself. Maybe it was the prospect of another Kasumi breakfast in the near future. Or maybe it was just his fundamentally happy-go-lucky nature reasserting himself. In any event Ranma was actually feeling pretty good about himself this morning, for perhaps the first time since Jusenkyo.

Kasumi couldn't help smiling at his enthusiasm as Ranma related his victory over the breakfast table, making the twins giggle with his dead-on impression of his father transforming into a panda in mid-lecture mode.

"Man, I wish you coulda seen it," Ranma was chortling, He wagged his finger sternly. "Ranma my boy, a true martial artist... gawar-grrrr-growf-moof..."

Nabiki laughed in delight as she reached for their rice bowl. "You're right, Ranma, I wish we had seen that."

Akane was grinning as she readied her chopsticks. "Yeah, your father can get a little pompous sometimes." She began shoveling clumps of the sticky rice alternatively into her and Nabiki's mouths.

Ranma smiled back as he raised his own rice bowl. The sight of the twins eating no longer seemed odd to him. Like everything else about them, though, their table setting --not to mention their table manners -- were a unique mix of the bizarre and the mundane, with separate little plates for their dainty little portions (They each only ate half of their combined bodily needs) and a single rice bowl (which they used in the traditional two-handed Japanese fashion) as well as individual tea cups and a glass for Akane's grapefruit juice (which Nabiki swore she couldn't stand; the two half-girl's tastes in food being just as divergent as their tastes in clothing.) And, as always there was the remarkable way they automatically shifted between joint and independent action without any hesitation or communication between them, just another aspect of the elaborate dance they'd led their entire lives.

"My, you certainly seem cheery this morning, Ranma." Kasumi remarked as she refilled his rice bowl for the third time.

The pigtailed martial artist shrugged. "Well, I just figure my life's gotta be lookin' up. I mean, hey, over the last month I've been cursed, chased halfway across China, darn near killed a buncha' times, and engaged against my will to some girl I never met...who seemed no more thrilled about it than I was," This last following a belated glance at the twins, who'd bristled but seemed to be holding their peace. "And my life ain't exactly been what you'd call normal before that. But at least I got a nice place to sleep and a roof over my head...I ain't had that in a while. And you're a great cook," He blushed, ducking his head "and I ain't never had that ever. So things just gotta be looking up. I mean, how much crazier could my life possibly get? Maybe things are finally gonna get back to normal."

_Hmmm. _Kasumi blinked even as she blushed from the praise _Chased out of China? Almost killed? That doesn't sound good._ For the first time she started having second thoughts about her little sister's engagement to this boy they actually knew very little about.

"I wouldn't say that if I were you, Ranma." Akane smirked, pleased that Ranma seemed to be willing to include them in his definition of normal, "That's as good as tempting fate."

"You sure it isn't _who_ you're engaged to that you're objecting to?" Nabiki asked quietly.

Ranma didn't even look up from his rice bowl. "Naaah." It wasn't even a lie, really. _After all,there's no way in hell I'm gonna marry **anyone** my idiot old man picked for me, conjoined twin or not._

Nabiki relaxed visibly. "You're probably right, sis."

"Of course I'm right. I'm always right." Akane announced smugly, wiggling her fingers to make the point.

"Oh you... It's not my fault the whole world is a conspiracy against us lefties." Nabiki growled back playfully.

Kasumi smiled gently as she sipped her tea. It seemed the _wa_ of her house was going to recover after all.

o00o

Nabiki crossed her arm with Akane's, tapping her foot for good measure as she stared at guy who looked like a refugee from a cheesy Hong Kong action flick--complete with props-- who was blocking their way home. "Back to normal, huh?" She muttered sarcastically as she watched the umbrella slice a chunk out of the concrete gate post as it spun back to its owner. _Saotome you jerk, you think **this** is normal?_

Ryoga snatched the deadly umbrella out of the air like it was nothing. "If it's the last thing I do, Ranma, I swear I will des..." Ryoga's voice trailed off in shock as he noticed the twins standing behind Ranma for the first time. He stood there for a moment, his jaw working silently, before he finally got his voice working again

"Ruh-Ruh-Ranma?" he asked in a plaintive voice completely at odds with his prior demeanor. "Is that a t-t-two headed girl?"

Ranma looked where Ryoga was pointing. Akane glowered back.

"Nope." Ranma responded casually, earning himself a couple of surprised, but grateful, looks from the twins.

"But what about her?" Ryoga asked, shifting his trembling finger slightly to the left.

Ranma blinked and turned his gaze to where Nabiki tilted her head in puzzlement. Then he turned back to Ryoga. "Nabiki doesn't have two heads either."

"They don't?" Ryoga responded in a dazed, but slightly hopeful voice. Clearly, he was hoping that this would all have a perfectly rational explanation.

Ranma sighed and pulled the other martial artist aside. "Listen up, jerk. Akane and Nabiki ain't a two-headed girl, OK? They're _two_ girls with _one_ body. An' they're kinda sensitive about it, so watch your mouth. You'll hurt their feelings."

"Oh...Okay." Ryoga muttered dazedly. "Um... I... I gotta go now...bye!"

Ranma stood there shaking his head as the perennially lost martial artist drifted off out of sight. The twins stepped up beside him, their hands on their hips

"So..." Akane began speculatively.

"...who was that?" Nabiki finished for her.

Ranma shook his head. "Some nutcase from my old school."

"I hope you don't have to fight him, Ranma." Nabiki said suddenly. "He's gotta be tougher then you are."

Ranma rounded on them, irked beyond measure. "What makes you say that?"

The twins shared one of their sidelong glances before Akane smirked back at him. "He didn't faint."

o00o

OmakeOmakeOmakeOmake

"Ooo-ooooh," James caroled in that distinctive way of his as he -- ever the gadget freak -- leaned out of the balloon basket to get a closer look at their intended victims. "Look you two; the little twerp's actually got a _gun_. What do you suppose it shoots? A grappling hook? A net? a..."

KA-BLAM!

"Eeep!" The dark-haired would-be super villain squealed in falsetto as the equipment console next to his elbow suddenly exploded, showering the three of them with shattered chips and mutilated circuitry. Meowth screamed in horror as the three of them dove for the illusory security provided by the bottom of the wicker basket.

"How about lead slugs, you idiot?" Jessie growled hysterically.

"A Fist-full of Pokemon", Chapter 6

o00o

"Prepare for trouble!"

"And make it..."

KA-BLAM!

"Eeeeeep!"

"Nice shot." Brock commented mildly. "But it looked a little low and to the left."

"Errr.." Ash responded, unable to think of anything better to say.

"Hmmmph." sniffed Misty, thumbing the safety on the 10 millimeter Combat Commander she'd snatched out of her younger companion's bandolier. "I always wanted to do that."

"A Fist-full of Pokemon", Chapter 7

o00o

Author's note:

No, I am not dead. It's just that between work, school, my family, my remodeling projects and my horse farm I'm lucky if I get more than an hour's writing time a week. Incidentally, I do most of my plotting while I do any of the vast number of the myriad little jobs a horse farm requires. So each scene represents a ditch dug or a fence post set or a section of pasture mowed.

Hopefully this will be the last installment of this story that is going to follow strict manga continuity. I felt it was necessary to introduce the characters. I will be sticking largely with the manga, but I'll be skipping ahead and trying to write the "scenes between the scenes" as much as possible.

Finally, "A Fist-full of Pokemon" (Yes, the misspelling was deliberate) seems to have taken on a life if its own. Pretty funny for something that was never intended to be anything more than a very esoteric one-shot gag in the first place. ("John Moses Browning, I choose you!" I mean... how many people these days even know who John Moses Browning actually was? Go figure.) I've actually gotten several requests to expand into a full-blown story in its own right, but I hesitate. Yes, the idea of re-envisioning Pokémon clichés with good 'ol American firepower is amusing, but I'm not sure such a one-note concept would work at story length.

Pilgrim


End file.
